Over six hundred thousand dollars worth of counterfeit Pokémon figures were recently seized by United States Customs and Border Protection agents, giving a whole new meaning to the phrase "Gotta catch 'em all!" It's no surprise that Nintendo's long-running Pokémon franchise has often been a target of fake and counterfeit products, especially considering how popular the series continues to be since its original release in the mid 1990's.
There are hundreds and hundreds of official Pokémon creatures, ranging from popular characters like Pikachu and Squirtle to less popular ones like Trubbish and Vanilluxe, a Pokémon which is literally an ice cream cone. Despite some of these weaker members of the National Dex, Pokémon fans love collecting toys of their favorites, and many of them likely have their own stories about coming across fake, unofficial Pokémon figurines.
However, a large batch of fake Pokémon figures will now never make it to market, thanks to some hard work by the United States Customs and Border Protection Agency. As reported by CBP.gov (thanks, Nintendo Life) officers in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania discovered over eighty-six thousand counterfeit Pokémon figures which had arrived in a shipment from Hong Kong and were labelled as "plastic furnishing articles." The toys were identified as fake and also designated "a potential choking hazard" by the authorities.
According to the Customs officials, they worked with the copyright holders to determine whether or not the figurines were legitimate, and once it was determined the items were counterfeit they were seized for "violating U.S. intellectual property rights." The fifteen boxes of illegal Pokémon toys were originally destined for "an address in Snyder County, Pennsylvania" and served to add to the roughly four million dollars the United States Customs office obtains per day in illegal Intellectual Property rights violations. According to the office, not only are these counterfeit toys designated a choking hazard but they also "tend to be coated in excessive levels of lead paint," which has been proven to be toxic to humans.
While some of the toys in the images pictured in this article look somewhat similar to their official counterparts, some (like Ekans) are immediately, noticeably fake. Although there are likely more than a few disappointed vendors in Pennsylvania right now, it's probably for the best that these illegal Pokémon counterfeit toys have been captured by the authorities, especially since, as the Customs office notes, many fake toys contain high levels of poisonous materials. Hopefully, this bust by the CBP will show illegitimate Pokémon sellers that the government is paying attention, and they will do their best to catch 'em all.
Source: CBP.gov (via Nintendo Life)