U.S., Canadian Authorities Seize Counterfeit Hardware

In a joint announcement, officials from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Customs and Border Protection (CBP), and Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) revealed that they had intercepted $76 million worth of counterfeit network hardware.The bust was the result of joint efforts over several years to attack the problem of counterfeit routers and other hardware entering the United States and Canada. The investigation, code-named Operation Cisco Raider by the FBI, resulted in more than 400 separate seizures involving tens of thousands of bogus Cisco components and labels.

Assistant Attorney General Alice S. Fisher warned, "Counterfeit network hardware entering the marketplace raises significant public safety concerns and must be stopped." Inspector Peter Goulet of the RCMP echoed Fisher's remarks, asserting that counterfeit networking hardware raises "serious health and safety concerns." If nothing else, the operation shows how easy it would be for even a vigilant business to wind up with counterfeit hardware: some of the defective products were sold to the Marine Corps, Air Force, the Federal Aviation Administration, and even the FBI itself.SiliconValley.com, InformationWeek