$18M in fake Gibson guitars seized in California

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) said Tuesday that $18 million in fake Gibson guitars were seized in California, which the agency called the “largest counterfeit musical instrument seizure on record.”

CBP said in a press release that offices working with representatives of Gibson and local authorites seized 3,000 counterfeit Gibson guitars. Those counterfeits, if they were passed off as authentic, would have had a value of $18,742,820, it said.

CBP said the fake guitars had come to the U.S. in ocean containers from Asia. Gibson, makes its guitars exclusively in the United States, verified that the guitars were counterfeit.

Shoppers should be wary, the CBP said, of stores offering products well below their market value. Such goods, it suggested, may not be real.

“As we approach the busy Holiday shopping season, consumers should pay attention on where they are buying these goods and how much they are paying, and if is too good to be true it probably is,” CBP Los Angeles Field Operations Director Cheryl M. Davies said in the release.

The CEO of Gibson said in a statement in the CBP release that his company is grateful for the work from authorities in halting the counterfeit scheme.