What you need to know
- 36,000 fake AirPods have been fixed by U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
- The goods had a total value of $7.16 million.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers have seized three shipments of fake AirPods in Cincinnati, with each shipment containing 12,000 items. With a total of 36,000 pairs of earbuds seized, the CBP says that the haul was worth $7.16 million based on Apple's genuine retail price.
Notably, none of the packaging includes the word "AirPods" and Apple's logo is nowhere to be seen. However, as the CBP notice spotted by Apple Insider notes, that doesn't matter. These things still break the law.
Apple has configuration trademarks on their AirPods and has recorded those trademarks with CBP. Furthermore, a company does not have to put the "Apple" wordmark or design on their products to violate these trademarks. In this instance, further inspection of the earbuds revealed that their shape and design replicated the protected Apple configuration.
The report says that the AirPods were on their way to an address in Dayton, KY.
Each shipment contained 12,000 fake AirPods, for a total of 36,000. Although each package had a declared value of $5,280, the Manufacturer's Suggested Retail Price for all the AirPods would have been $7.16 million had they been genuine. The shipments were destined for an address in Dayton, KY.
Fake AirPods are sold all over the place right now and some of them are surprisingly difficult to spot.
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