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Fake Cisco box pushers cuffed by Intellectual Property Police

That's intellectual-property police, not intellectual property-police

A London-based criminal outfit suspected of flogging $10m (£6.6m) in counterfeit Cisco networking gear to the US has been arrested by the City of London Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit (PIPCU).

Three men aged 38, 36 and 35, were arrested last week by City police on suspicion of running the counterfeit business. An estimated $1m (£656m) in suspected counterfeit goods was seized.

Between December 2012 and April this year 40 shipments of suspected counterfeit Cisco products believed to be sent from the suspects’ UK business to the US were intercepted by US Customs and Border Protection.

Detective Inspector Mick Dodge, from PIPCU, said: “Cisco products are used by organisations worldwide to underpin their IT infrastructures.

"Businesses need to have confidence in their supply chains and be aware of the risks that counterfeit products can have on their networks; potentially compromising integrity and functionality including significant network outages.”

PIPCU collaborated with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and Cisco.

Last month PIPCU received a shout out from Sylvester Stallone after it arrested a man on suspicion of leaking the Expendables 3 movie.

The unit launched in April 2013 with funding from the Intellectual Property Office (IPO) and is based within the Economic Crime Directorate of the City of London Police, the National Policing Lead for Fraud. It has funds of £3m until 2017. ®

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