| 
The US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) operated the destruction of about 7000 replica Rolex watches at a contractor’s site in Philadelphia. These fakes are enough to create more than $1,000,000. To reap fabulous profits is the only reason for producing counterfeit timepieces or other luxury goods. For a very long time many Asian developing countries put their reputations at risk for severely violating intellectual property rights.
Fake watches ranks the second on the list of “the most obnoxious things for luxury watchmakers”. Well, the one on the top is a bad economy. To those watch firms, fakes are as bad as hard drug trafficking. Fabricating replica watches is definitely not a violent crime, but it certainly do great damage to the luxury goods economy, even the whole industy. It is an illegal activity that utterly disregards intellectual property rights.
The suspect who created these fakes is Binh Cam Tran of Pennsylvania. He is serving six years in federal prison after being convicted of trafficking in counterfeit goods, conspiracy, and nine counts of money laundering. He has been ordered to pay over $2 million dollars to Rolex USA.
