Superfakes: The illicit world of luxury counterfeit handbags

so these bags are identical but one is real and one is fake can you tell me which one is which dupes and replicas are taking over this feels like real do at a time when high-end luxury Brands like Hermes Chanel and Prada continue to boost their prices buying luxury feels less obtainable than ever some consumers are turning to the resale Market to get luxury goods can we go look back there yeah While others are turning to so-called super fakes they're considered high quality fakes nearly as good as the real thing but for a much lower price even says the name on the hardware a study from Michigan State University says counterfeits are normalizing the stigma of owning counterfeits in part by using influencers to Pedal their products the handbag America's forever status symbol is a fashion statement showing who's who with shows like Sex in the City it's 4,000 I know and there's a waiting list I assumed 5 years but now sometimes it's the celebrities sporting The Fakes how you doing Real Housewives Jen sham made headlines for being found to have dozens of counterfeit luxury handbags following her arrest for federal fraud in 2023 Handbags and wallets ranked as the second most seized counterfeit item by US Customs worth over $600 million in estimated retail value so we've got hundreds of birkens available and when you come into one our Flagship locations you can literally shop between hundreds of Birkin at your disposal Sarah Davis runs fashion file a resale platform that sells secondhand luxury handbags so what have you learned about our society's obsession with luxury and the kind of person who can afford a resold bag that's still thousands of dollars I feel like there's like a gravitation on the other side to things that are tangible things that have history that that just there's story behind it like Louis Vuitton people talk about the monogram oh is it overplayed you see it a lot but it was designed in the 1800s what else has been cool that long you know it's amazing each bag sent for resale to Fashion file undergoes an authentication process and they keep some bags determined as counterfeits for educational purposes but being able to tell the difference between a real and a super fake isn't always easy I can see the difference between the print this looks like glossier like it's probably fake inside's super important yeah this is thicker than this this looks higher quality I think this one's real this is a real counterfeit really this is a counterfeit especially for the untrained eye the key differences can lie in the smallest of details from zipper Engravings the zipper profile on a Louis Vuitton zipper it should never have any kind of shape or engraving there and then you look on the authentic one you'll see there's nothing there yeah to logo placement we have a leather maen patch that says Louis Vuitton made in France it actually kind of Falls right around this Bend here which just doesn't really blend itself to like a really nicely made piece and the authentic piece it's distinctly um in a different place so it actually is placed on the back of the bag here rather than under the top so we have another Louis Vuitton style two identical bags I'll say this one is real this one is the genuine counterfeit oh my God you're two for two J so what you noticed on this they copied the the Engravings pretty exactly they both say the same thing there's just a difference in the finish this is actually overp polished so it kind of gives like a a wavy finish whereas the genuine one I can see that it was just a much cleaner engraving the truth is there's never been more counterfeits that are better the super fakes like today and yet the luxury brands have never been stronger last fiscal year customs in Border Protection seized nearly 23 million counterfeit Goods Nationwide worth more than $2 billion in estimated retail value the most common counterfeit items continue to be luxury goods in November 2023 Federal prosecutors executed the largest seizure of counterfeit Goods in US history we'll talking about a whole storage facility that was full of counterfeit handbags I just never seen anything like that the storage facilities held over 100,000 counterfeit luxury items valued at over $700 million estimated retail value calculated as if they were authentic they're bringing in so much that it's just hard to stay on top of it Tech technology you know the ability to to make a a super fake is easier now than ever before we went to a shipment processing warehouse at JFK airport in New York Customs agents led by director of field operations Frank Russo inspect cargo coming in from all over the world we were developed as a result of 911 and um you know our our job is to protect the country against terrorists and instruments of Terror counterfeit goods are a direct link to terrorist organizations there's no doubt about it when we asked the CVP for evidence linking counter fits to terrorism in the US they cited the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center they also asserted that other terrorist organizations have engaged in the sale of counterfeit goods and stolen cultural artifacts to help fund their organization but declined to provide specifics officials say weapons from the 25th 15 terror attack on French magazine Charlie ebdo was financed in part by fake Nike sneakers our officers and import Specialists are the first ones to look at that cargo coming in and determine on the spot whether it needs to be opened up or not we are what keeps this stuff from getting onto the streets of of our cities the inspection team opens up hundreds of boxes averaging 82 seizures a day but given the volume of shipments a lot still end up falling through the cracks take a walk in Manhattan and any of those bags that you see on the sidewalk got through we do the best we can but we're outnumbered I guess a packages origin is the first clue that a shipment of handbags is likely filled with Fakes there's no concealment here it's like shoot fish in a barrel you know we go to a warehouse we check the country of origin we look at the bags we look at the shipper and 99.9% of the time it is what it is China and Hong Kong are probably closer to 70% of all the counterfeit Goods that we see the second clue when a variety of luxury brands are shipped in the same box well I mean they'll pack them up good in a little box like this you'll get you know 50 items sometimes Customs agents inspect cargo from bags that are violating us intellectual property rights once an item is seized it's repacked for processing usually it doesn't fit quite the way it did when it when it came out my wife does all the packing when we go on vacation it's not at one of my strong points import Specialists confirm if the seized items are actually counterfeits so like Louis Vuitton Chanel they bring representatives and they train us of how we can tell their products are real or fake when it comes through the port once it's confirmed an item is fake they determine the manufacturer's suggested retail price and pass it on to the special enforcement team where it's eventually destroyed I have this phrase that I use the bitterness of poor quality lasts much longer than the happiness of a good price our thanks to Jana you can see more on impact by Nightline super fakes the shadow world of counterfeit purses streaming now on Hulu

Channel: ABC News

Views: 125,567

Keywords: Superfakes, abc, abcnews, counterfeit, crime, goods, handbags, luxury, p_cmsid=2494279, p_vid=news-109415196, purse, replica, us, Hulu, documentary, IMPACT x nightline, 2024, bags, fake

Id: kLOh3uvsa9Y

Length: 8min 53sec (533 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 21 2024