ARLINGTON (1080 KRLD)- A counterfeiting operation based out of Arlington is now no more.
"Earlier this summer, we were notified that there was an online company that has a warehouse here in Arlington as potentially manufacturing and then selling for items with logos of high end fashion brands," says Tim Ciesco, Arlington Police spokesman.
The company's name is Creo Piece, and their warehouse was on Prairie St.
Investigators went to work after being made aware of the counterfeiting scheme.
"They set up some undercover buys to acquire some of the merchandise that this individual was selling," says Ciesco.
Once experts confirmed that those items were counterfeit, the department executed a search warrant at the warehouse and confiscated 75 large boxes full of bogus merchandise, an embroidery machine and a heat transfer printing machine.
"They ended up seizing just north of 101,000 individual items," says Ciesco; "and based on the retail value they were selling for on the website, total of the items that they seized came in at just over $650,000."
The owner of the company was arrested in Dallas and has since bonded out of jail.
"The suspect is 35-year-old Oumar Dia," Ciesco says, "and we arrested him on one count of trademark counterfeiting greater than $300,000."
The seizure was one for the record books for the Arlington Police Dept.
"This does appear to be one of, if not the, largest counterfeiting seizure that we have ever made in the history of this department," says Ciesco.
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