Canal Street raid leads to eight arrests and $30 million in forgery
The merch was fake. The busts were real.
According to authorities, the NYPD seized $30 million worth of counterfeit goods and arrested eight illegal street vendors in the department’s recent raid on Canal Street.
The takedown comes on the heels of recent Post articles documenting how the fake businessmen came back full force and an exposure of smugglers flooding Canal Street with the fake loot.
Authorities confiscated vendors Thursday afternoon, police said, confiscating a slew of the usual counterfeit favorites: sneakers, purses, watches, bags.
The raid came “in response to numerous complaints from the public,” the NYPD told The Post.
The ongoing Canal Street saga is a game of cat and mouse between cops and traffickers.
Up to $2 million worth of counterfeit designer merchandise was stolen from Canal Street near Broadway in a large-scale NYPD raid in August 2022. But the fake dealers popped up again in the same area within a few months.
In November, police officers seized more than $10 million worth of counterfeit “high-end” merchandise in a search of counterfeit purses, sneakers and other illegal merchandise on Canal Street. The raid resulted in 17 arrests, with the fraudulent sellers facing the highest charge of counterfeiting property worth over $1,000, a felony in the state, Department Chief Jeffrey Maddrey said.
The eight vendors arrested on Thursday are between 33 and 50 years old. The suspects all face counterfeiting charges, while some also face counterfeiting charges. One was also charged with resisting arrest, the NYPD.
