CBP Busy Confiscating Fake Perfume, Dangerous Hair Dryers

Judicial Watch

2/16/2012

While loads of drugs and illegal immigrants slip into the U.S. through the southern border, the Homeland Security agency created after 9/11 to protect the nation from such threats boasts about intercepting counterfeit perfume and unsafe hair dryers.

Incredible but true. The huge agency—Customs and Border Protection (CBP)—created after the 2001 attacks to protect the country from terrorists, narcotics and illegal aliens is busy seizing hair dryers and perfume. In separate press releases this month, the agency brags about confiscating $51 million worth of fake perfume in fiscal year 2011 and more than 12,000 “dangerous hair dryers” at ports on opposite coasts of the country.

Americans should sleep easier at night knowing that CBP busted a ring that largely sold a “Sex in the City” brand of perfume named after a popular cable television series. These sorts of counterfeit perfumes are a form of theft from the brand owner and protecting American intellectual property is a priority for CBP, the agency says in its announcement. In addition to the economic harm, the agency further says, counterfeit perfumes are also often contaminated with unknown chemicals that can cause serious injury.

And now… the rest of the story. …..