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Selling fake Cisco gear lands Kansas man in prison for 27 months

A Kansas man was sentenced to 27 months in federal prison "for selling $1 …

A Kansas man was sentenced to 27 months in federal prison "for selling $1 million worth of counterfeit Cisco computer equipment," the US Attorney's office for the District of Kansas said. Timothy Weatherly, 29, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to traffic in counterfeit goods and making false statements to smuggle goods into the United States, related to the operation of a business called Deals Direct in 2005 and 2006.

Weatherly teamed up with Christopher Meyers, a codefendant who was sentenced to 33 months in prison earlier this year, the US Attorney's office said. "The conspirators put counterfeit Cisco labels on the equipment and placed the counterfeit goods in Cisco boxes with counterfeit Cisco manuals," while obtaining access to Cisco's "confidential serial number verification Web site" to obtain legitimate serial numbers.

Deals Direct sold the counterfeit equipment on its website and on eBay, but the operation was shut down in November 2006 when investigators served a search warrant and "found hundreds of counterfeit Cisco labels, stickers, boxes and documentation as well as thousands of counterfeit Cisco goods."

This sale of fake Cisco gear was not an isolated incident. In 2008, it was reported that an international operation uncovered $76 million worth of fake Cisco equipment, such as routers, switches and network cards, being trafficked between the United States, Canada, and China. Just two months ago, the US Department of Justice announced a 60-month prison sentence for a Virginia woman who was arrested in 2010 for selling counterfeit Cisco networking equipment.

Channel Ars Technica