Tee shirts, baseball caps, and tickets – the All-Star Game in Kansas City triggered the largest counterfeit and merchandise investigation in local history. Photo courtesy HSI.
It was big times in Kansas City when the All-Star Game came to town July 6-10. And not just for law-abiding citizens. Apparently counterfeiters were having a big time, too.
According to the Kansas City Police Department’s Narcotics and Vice Quarterly, the KCPD conducted its largest-scale counterfeit ticket and merchandise investigation ever.
Vice paired with the Illegal Firearms Squad and Homeland Security Investigations (HIS). The group investigated more than a dozen counterfeit game tickets and 13,023 items of fake merchandise. Altogether the items and tickets were valued at more than $540,000.
The police also found stores, street vendors and Internet sellers selling all sorts of fake products. In some cases, the goods for sale were actually from other sports leagues; in other cases they were copies of officially-authorized merchandise.
Some good news though – at least the bad guys who sold the counterfeit tickets were not local.
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