Sell phony cisco gear and get a 30 year prison term - Garnet's Wiki

Phony Cisco Gear Nets Reseller 30 Months (and millions of dollars in fines)

By Andrew R Hickey, [ChannelWeb] 2:56 PM EDT Thu. Aug. 07, 2008

A New York-based hardware reseller must serve 30 months in prison for trafficking and selling bogus Cisco Systems (NSDQ:CSCO) gear.

Charles Lacy-Thompson, former owner of Coletronic Computer, was recently sentenced by U.S District Judge Stephen C. Robinson in White Plains Federal Court to serve the 30-year-term and also pay $2.2 million in forfeiture and restitution, according to the United States Attorney, Southern District of New York.

Funny typo above about it being a 30 year sentence. Please proofread your articles better, selling phony electronics is not a crime worse than murder.

Notice that he forfeited a bunch of money to the government, not to any individuals who were actually damaged, i.e. the people who bought the fake gear. As usual, the government gets richer, and the individual people have no recourse.

Looking at it another way, the fortfeiture amount to a big discount to the government. Will the forfeiture be distributed back to the taxpayers? Hah!

He has also made payments in back taxes of over $972,000 to the IRS and $211,000 to State of New York.

Wonder if he had to pay taxes on the amount he forfeited?

The U.S. Attorney said Lacy-Thompson imported generic items from China that resembled Cisco transceivers, devices used to transmit and receive data across networks; as well as packages of white stickers bearing the model numbers of transceivers manufactured by San Jose, Calif.-based Cisco.

Wonder if most of the real-name brand gear is actually also made in China. Cisco basically admitted the phone gear is as good as their own, security wise at least. If so, what's the real difference other than bloated price?

Cisco ... has never turned up a software or hardware modification that opened devices to security vulnerabilities.

Oh, and what about prosecuting the Chinese for making such good knockoffs, or diverting items off the Cisco production line and selling them out the back door? That wouldn't be good for free trade would it?

Fast Facts:

Company: Coletronic
Guilty: Charles Lacy-Thompson
Location: Briarcliff Manor, New York
Judge: Stephen C. Robinson
Court: White Plains Federal Court
Extent of the problem: Government agencies have bought 3,500 pieces of phony Cisco gear, worth roughly $3.5 million, including Cisco routers, switches, Gigabit interface converters and WAN interface cards.
- Including FAA, Marines, US Air Force, Navy, FBI, defense contractor, universities, finanicla institutions

Quotes:

Judge Robinson - "This was a crime of pure greed"