Its likely that you’ve seen someone selling marked down items on the Internet or out of the trunk of their car in a parking lot. You also probably wondered whether those sales were legal or if these products were even what the seller said they were. Recently, the Utah County Attorney General’s Office SECURE Strike Force arrested 28-year-old Marcelo Christian Veizaga for selling counterfeit items to unsuspecting individual throughout Salt Lake County over a period of several months. Some of the counterfeit items that Mr. Veizaga was purportedly selling included Beats by Dre headphones, Instyler hair styling devices, and Beachbody workout DVDs. He is also alleged to have been selling a prescription drug that is only available through a licensed pharmacist.
According to the news report, SECURE had been investigating Mr. Veizaga for several weeks before they made the arrest. Sgt. Kevin Pepper, a member of the SECURE Strike Force, said, “Some of the products like the beat headphones they aren`t going to be the same quality as the actual product itself so these people even though they are paying half price they`re getting ripped off, and that he suspected it’s coming from Asia, an Asian country according to some of the boxes, I suspect it`s coming from China.”
As part of their investigation, SECURE filed for three separate search warrants, one for Mr. Veizaga’s apartment, one for his storage unit, and the other for his car. Execution of the search warrants revealed boxes of counterfeit merchandise and thousands of dollars in cash in all three locations. In conjunction with his illegal activity, Mr. Veizaga has been charged with engaging in a pattern of unlawful activity, failure to disclose the origin of recording, criminal simulation, communications fraud and distributing prescription drugs without a license, all of which are felonies.