Bentonville store owner charged in counterfeiting investigation
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Recommend ThisBy Ben Orcutt -- borcutt@nvdaily.com
FRONT ROYAL -- A Dallas Cowboys hat and a purse sporting a Louis Vuitton label provided the ammunition for an investigation that led to last week's arrest of a Bentonville store owner.
The owner of the Foodway Supermarket, Manish B. Desai, 44, of 25335 Diligence Court, Aldie, was arrested Friday and charged with possession of counterfeit items. The arrest took place one week after authorities seized more than 1,900 counterfeit items from his store, located at 2868 Stonewall Jackson Highway in Bentonville.
Desai remains free on his own recognizance pending an appearance at 10 a.m. July 13 in Warren County General District Court. The warrant for Desai's arrest indicates that he was in possession of "100 or more identical counterfeit registered marks or counterfeit items valued at $200 or more."
In a complaint form on file in the court, investigator William A. Smoot of the Warren County Sheriff's Office said a purse with a Louis Vuitton label was purchased at the Foodway Supermarket on June 14.
Smoot said that a baseball hat with a Dallas Cowboys logo was purchased at the store on June 15. Smoot says that on June 17, both of the items were determined to be counterfeit.
Authorities executed a search warrant at Foodway on June 17, Smoot says, adding that there were items for sale in the amount of $200 "and the owner Manish Desai knew the items were counterfeit."
Smoot has said authorities got a tip from a concerned citizen about the counterfeit merchandise being sold.
The Sheriff's Office was assisted in the case by investigators from the Northwest Virginia
Regional Drug and Gang Task Force, the Loudoun County Sheriff's Office and Blazer Investigations of Chester.
"Blazer Investigations is the one that confirmed that all of the items were fake," Smoot has said.
Other designer brands such as Lacoste, Nike and Rolex were among the counterfeit merchandise.
The counterfeit items include shoes, hats, shirts, watches, purses and wallets.
Had the items been authentic, they would have been worth more than $579,000, according to authorities.
In addition to the counterfeit merchandise, authorities seized more than $15,000 in cash from the store.
The probe is ongoing, and anyone with information about the case is asked to call the investigations division of the Warren County Sheriff's Office at 635-7100 or email CrimeTips@warrencountysheriff.org.
I hope these gas station fakers didn't have much of an impact on the legitimate Warren County handbag dealers... oh wait nevermind.
Counterfeit purses, for God’s sake! Who cares? I’m sure there’s quite a few felons that come specifically to Bentonville for Lacoste, Nike and Rolex products. If anyone is fool enough to buy something like that for good money at a convenience store in Bentonville, they deserve what they get. Law enforcement has nothing better to do than protect foreign bands from idiots?
Yes, there are much better things for the police to do like rallying for a leash law so the owners of the mean dog in the neighborhood will get fined for it coming over to our house to beat up my dog.
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