Counterfeit luxury goods invade Chicago

Main PointsStatus-seekers don’t have to go to New York or Los Angeles to find luxury knockoffs. They can pick up counterfeit handbags, shoes, belts or sunglasses right here at flea markets, storefront shops, sidewalk stands, “purse parties” and, unwittingly, even high-end department stores.More than 100,000 fakes with a suggested retail value of more than $5 million were seized in the Chicago area during the fiscal year ended Sept. 30, according to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Office of Homeland Security Investigations, one of the federal agencies policing the counterfeit market. That, of course, is only what this one agency confiscated.Authorities seized 12 vanloads of bogus Louis Vuitton, Prada, Chanel and Burberry bags at Montana Charlie’s Flea Market in Bolingbrook in August. A Cicero woman was arrested a month earlier on charges of possessing more than 500 fake designer handbags worth in excess of $500,000. And last May two women from central Illinois were arrested after police discovered more than 15,000 brand-name knockoffs valued at $1.6 million. After pleading guilty, they were sentenced to prison for two and three years. “What people don’t realize is that Chicago is definitely the third-largest marketplace for the sale of counterfeit merchandise,” says Kevin Read, vice president of Edward R. Kirby & Associates, a private detective and criminal investigation firm in Elmhurst that is retained by several of the world’s premier brands to investigate

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