Tuesday, August 21, 2012

Shoe drops on 20,000 Louboutin fakes


If someone offers you a genuine pair of Christian Louboutin heels at a Tupperware party style gig for a price that sounds too good to be true, chances are it is.

I would think the first tip off should be the red-soled stilts being sole party-plan style but hey, that's just me.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection confiscated 20,457 pairs of counterfeit Christian Louboutin shoes at the Los Angeles / Long Beach seaport this week with an estimated street value of $18 million.

"They label the shipments as generic shoes when, in fact, they’re bringing over contraband," Jaime Ruiz, a public affairs specialist for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security told ABC News.

According to Customs and Border Protection, the knock-off Louboutins were transported in five different shipments on a cargo ship in large boxes from China and had a domestic value of more than $57,000 (meaning it cost just less than $3 per pair to make them).

Officials took pictures of the shoes and consulted with the trademark holder to authenticate the shoe. Once they learned they were counterfeit, the hot commodities were taken off the black market and placed into the border patrol's possession.

Apparently some of the slick red soles were different shades of red which, pardon the pun, red flagged the haul. What do you expect at 3 bucks a pop I suppose.

@traceygillinder would like to apologize for cheating on Shoe Addict readers. Forgive me? Then check out the new Brisbane Times Plus One Column!


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