News Releases and Statements

The IPR Center, working collaboratively with its public and private sector partners, stands at the forefront of the United States government's response to combatting global intellectual property theft and enforcing intellectual property rights violations.

The IPR Center, in conjunction with Michigan State University’s A-CAPP Center, hosted a discussion, April 26, with Sean Williams, Co-Founder of Detroit -vs- Everybody to discuss brand protection to help creatives protect their business against IP theft in support of World Intellectual Property Day 2022.

The IPR Center and the RIAA will implement an aggressive multi-layered strategy to strengthen the digital ecosystem, conduct joint training events, educate consumers on the dangers of illegal streaming, enforce the nation’s intellectual property rights laws, and dismantle large-scale online criminal enterprises.

ICE's HSI New Orleans seized 384 counterfeit items valued at an estimated $375,925, during an IPR operation April 1-4.

The FY 2021 Annual Report provides a comprehensive overview of the efforts of ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO), Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), Office of the Principal Legal Advisor (OPLA), Management & Administration, Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR), and Office of Diversity and Civil Rights.

Today, the IPR Center, the NFL, CBP, the Los Angeles Sheriff Department and ICE HSI announced that more than 267, 511 counterfeit sports-related items, worth an estimated $97.8 million, were seized during Operation Team Player.

By embedding MPA and ACE personnel to the team at the IPR Center in Washington D.C. and other resources to the expanded framework, the partnering organizations are able to further expand their collective content protection efforts.

HSI is working with local, state, and federal law enforcement partners to provide essential public safety measures in and around the Los Angeles area. Measures include, but are not limited to, investigating human trafficking and intellectual property rights violations. The goal is to help address criminal threats the public, the National Football League, and the city of Inglewood may face leading up to and throughout Super Bowl LVI week, between Feb. 6-13.

The HSI-led initiative, dubbed Operation Safety Claus, was supported by CBP and the Louisiana Bureau of Investigation, with support from the U.S. FDA Office of Criminal Investigations. The coordinated federal law enforcement operation focused on interrupting counterfeit efforts in the New Orleans metro area during the holiday shopping season. In total, the seized counterfeit items had a Manufacturer's Suggested Retail Price of $1,012,942.

The operation led to the arrest of 12 suspects this year, the seizure of nearly $3 million worth of counterfeit goods ahead of Cyber Monday, and the opening of 48 criminal cases.

The holiday shopping toolkit includes online shopping do’s and don’ts, ways to protect financial and banking information, educational videos and infographics, and general information on how to spot fake merchandise.  

Most recently, HSI Seattle, in conjunction with the Department of State, Department of Justice, US Fish and Wildlife Service, US Customs and Border Protection, Seattle Police Department and HSI Nairobi, spearheaded the investigation that led to Herdade Lokua, 23, and Jospin Mujangi, 31, of Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), being arrested and indicted by a federal grand jury for conspiracy, money laundering, smuggling and Lacey Act violations for trafficking elephant ivory and white rhinoceros horn from DRC to Seattle, Nov. 3.

On Aug. 3, HSI special agents seized 12,688 pieces of counterfeit merchandise valued at $13,479,402, an Apple computer, an external hard drive, catalogs listing counterfeit merchandise for sale, and numerous business documents.

The fraudulent websites allegedly offer a number of drugs for sale for the experimental and unapproved treatment or prevention of COVID-19. Instead, the domains were allegedly used to collect the personal information of individuals visiting the sites in order to use their information for nefarious purposes, including fraud, phishing attacks and/or deployment of malware.

The counterfeit N95 masks were purchased by the State of Maine over a series of transactions occurring in late 2020 and early 2021. HSI worked with the State of Maine and 3M to verify the masks fraudulent origin. HSI and law enforcement partners work together regularly to prevent dangerous counterfeit products from reaching U.S. consumers.

The IPR Center today announced dual partnerships with Grace Farms Foundation, a nonprofit organization focused ending modern slavery and violence, and Liberty Shared, a global counter-trafficking nongovernmental organization, to advance their collective shared missions of eliminating wildlife and other natural capital trafficking crimes around the world.

The partnership represents an important step for global intellectual property rights protection and will focus on mutual goals that allow for the exchange and sharing of information between the Law School and the IPR Center to develop a unified approach in the enforcement of intellectual property rights around the world.

According to the affidavit filed in support of the seizure, the HSI Intellectual Property Rights Center (“IPRC”) and the HSI Cyber Crimes Center (“C3”) discovered an apparent fraudulent website, named “freevaccinecovax.org.” A domain analysis conducted by HSI indicated the domain name was created on April 27, 2021, using an IP address located in Strasbourg. The registrant country was listed as Russia.

This joint initiative provides resources – free of charge – to aid small to mid-size businesses in protecting themselves against IP theft, fraud and cyber security awareness.

According to the affidavits filed in support of these seizures, these investigations began in March 2021. Homeland Security Investigations and the National Intellectual Property Rights Center received notification of two fraudulent websites, “genobioscience.com” and “healthbridgescience.com.” The third site, “global-pandemic-vaccines.com,” was discovered by Homeland Security Investigations’ Cyber Crimes Center (C3) during ongoing investigations for malicious websites. The cases were referred to HSI Baltimore for investigation.

Over 1,000 items were confiscated, including several boxes of luxury designer goods such as high-end purses, caps, shoes and sunglasses.

The IPR Center, DoJ and the leading manufactures of the COVID-19 vaccine, are investigating reports of these fraudulent COVID-19 vaccine surveys enticing consumers to provide personal information with the promise of a prize or cash at the conclusion of the survey.

With criminal groups producing, distributing and selling fake vaccines, the risks to the public are clear: these can include buying a product which not only does not protect against COVID-19, but poses a serious health hazard if ingested or injected. Such products are not tested, regulated or safety-checked. Legitimate vaccines are not for sale. They are strictly administered and distributed by national healthcare regulators.

More than 460,000 counterfeit 3M N95 surgical masks destined to be used by first responders in the Puget Sound region were seized Wednesday by HSI's BEST, U.S. CBP and the FBI.

Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) federal agents have seized approximately 10 million counterfeit 3M N95 respirator masks in recent weeks, the result of ongoing collaboration between the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and manufacturer 3M to prevent counterfeit masks from reaching hospital workers and first responders.