A Florida resident was sentenced to 78 months for working a counterfeit rip-off that generated $100 million in income from faux networking gear and put the US navy’s safety in danger, the US Division of Justice (DOJ) introduced Thursday.
Onur Aksoy, aka Ron Aksoy and Dave Durden, pleaded responsible on June 5, 2023, to 2 counts of an indictment charging him with conspiring with others to site visitors in counterfeit items, to commit mail fraud, and to commit wire fraud. His sentence, handed down on Might 1, additionally consists of an order to pay $100 million in restitution to Cisco, a $40,000 wonderful, and three years of supervised launch. Aksoy may also must pay his victims a sum {that a} court docket will decide at an unspecified future date, the DOJ stated.
In keeping with the indictment [PDF], Aksoy started plotting the rip-off round August 2013, and the operation ran till at the least April 2022. Aksoy used at the least 19 corporations and about 15 Amazon storefronts, 10 eBay ones, and direct gross sales—recognized collectively as Professional Community Entities—to promote tens of hundreds of laptop networking units. He imported the merchandise from China and Hong Kong and used faux Cisco packaging, labels, and paperwork to promote them as new and actual. Authentic variations of the merchandise would’ve bought for over $1 billion, per the indictment.
The DOJ’s announcement this week stated the units had an estimated retail worth of “a whole lot of thousands and thousands of {dollars}” and that Aksoy personally acquired thousands and thousands of {dollars}.
Faux Cisco tech utilized in Air Pressure, Military, and Navy purposes
The US navy used gear bought from Aksoy’s scheme, which jeopardized delicate purposes, together with help platforms for US fighter jets and different forms of navy plane, per authorities officers.
In an announcement this week, Bryan Denny, particular agent in command of the US Division of Protection (DoD) Workplace of Inspector Normal, Protection Felony Investigative Service within the Western Discipline Workplace, stated that Aksoy “knowingly defrauded the Division of Protection by introducing counterfeit merchandise into its provide chain that routinely failed or didn’t work in any respect.” He added:
In doing so, he bought counterfeit Cisco merchandise to the DoD that have been discovered on quite a few navy bases and in numerous methods, together with however not restricted to US Air Pressure F-15 and US Navy P-8 plane flight simulators.
The DOJ’s announcement stated that Aksoy’s counterfeit units ended up “utilized in extremely delicate navy and governmental purposes—together with categorized info methods—some involving fight and non-combat operations of the US Navy, US Air Pressure, and US Military, together with platforms supporting the F-15, F-18, and F-22 fighter jets, AH-64 Apache assault helicopter, P-8 maritime patrol plane, and B-52 Stratofortress bomber plane.”
Gadgets bought by means of the rip-off additionally wound up in hospitals and faculties, the announcement stated.
