A Florida man has pleaded guilty to making more than $100 million importing and selling counterfeit Cisco network devices.
Miami resident Onur Aksoy, 39, pleaded guilty to conspiring with others to sell counterfeit goods, mail fraud, wire fraud and mail fraud. The Department of Justice (DoJ) said he faces four to six-and-a-half years in prison and must forfeit $15 million in unjustified gains from the scheme.
Axoy, a dual U.S.-Turkish citizen, operates at least 19 companies in New Jersey and Florida, as well as 15 Amazon stores and at least 10 eBay stores, which prosecutors collectively refer to. and called it the “pro network entity”.
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According to court documents, he imported tens of thousands of counterfeit Cisco networking devices from China and Hong Kong with fake labels, stickers, boxes, documents and packaging to make them look like the real thing.
These devices were older products, often previously sold or scrapped, but Chinese counterfeiters modified them to make them look like newer and more expensive devices. Untrustworthy and unauthorized components were also often added, including pirated Cisco software and components designed to evade Cisco’s anti-piracy checks.
Many of these products had performance issues and, in some cases, malfunctioned, damaging customer networks and operations, according to the Justice Department. One ill-fated company lost tens of thousands of dollars in the process, court documents claim.
Recipients included hospitals, schools, government agencies, and the military.
Aksoy is also said to have filed official documents with Customs and Border Protection (CBP) under a false name and used a fake Ohio address to receive the package. CBP appears to have seized 180 counterfeit goods from ProNetworks entities between 2014 and 2019.
Additionally, between 2014 and 2019, Cisco sent Aksoy seven cease and desist letters, and Aksoy responded at least twice with forged documents through its lawyers. In July 2021, investigators raided his warehouse and seized 1,156 counterfeit Cisco devices retailing over $7 million.
