Fake Alert! Barbershop Busted With $10,000 of Counterfeit Nikes
Hate to break it to you, but if you're buying your sneakers out the backdoor of a barbershop then there's a high chance they're not the real deal. A man at Paul's Barber Shop in Raleigh, North Carolina, has been busted by state authorities after taking a delivery of 83 pairs of fake .
According to the North Carolina Secretary of State's Office, the counterfeit kicks were collectively worth approximately $10,000, based on the recommended retail pricing of the real deal. One hundred counterfeit designer belts were also seized.
Investigators were alerted to the knockoff goods due to their heavily taped cardboard packaging, which was identical to that of previously intercepted fake merchandise.
The man behind the operation, Omar Tariq Lucas, has been charged with criminal use of a counterfeit trademark.
Ten thousand dollars is a tidy sum to keep off the black market, but it's sadly just a drop in a bucket for a shady industry worth a reported $461 billion!