Federal Agents Seize Thousands of Luxury Counterfeit Items in Store Raid, Yearslong Investigation
Federal agents raided a Milwaukee clothing store suspected of dealing in counterfeit luxury goods for years, and hauled out boxes and boxes of alleged counterfeit merchandise.
The raid occurred on Dutti Fashion on Milwaukee’s south side, as part of an eight-year investigation into the peddling of counterfeit luxury merchandise like Dolce & Gabbana, Burberry, and Louis Vuitton.
After receiving a search warrant, agents from Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) broke through the door of the locked store and spent hours seizing goods and stacking up boxes for removal as evidence.
Neighbor Diaa Abdel Modeleb witnessed the raid.
“I think they were waiting for someone, and then they used a device to open the door,” said Modeleb.
According to court documents, a Jordanian national is suspected of peddling the fake merchandise to Dutti Fashion and a second store on Milwaukee’s north side that was reportedly owned by his brother. The suspects have been under surveillance since 2017, with agents already intercepting 18 shipments headed to the Milwaukee stores from countries like Hong Kong, Egypt, and Turkey.
The shipments contained everything from clothing to purses to hats to shoes and together amounted to about 15,000 items. If the items were real, they would be worth more than $1.6 million according to import specialists. One shipment seized by CBP in 2020 alone contained dozens of counterfeit Rolex watches with a value of about $1 million.
So far, no federal charges have been filed in connection with the case. Milwaukee news station TMJ reached out to the alleged owner of Dutti Fashion, who told the reporter, that he didn’t own the store anymore and then hung up.