For years now, Amazon has been working hard to stop the sale of counterfeit items on Amazon. Now Amaozn’s Counterfeit Crimes Unit (CCU) announced the filing of two new lawsuits against Kamryn Russell, Ashley Hawat, and others who Amazon says knowingly attempted to evade Amazon’s brand protection systems in an effort to promote, advertise, and facilitate the sale of counterfeit luxury fashion goods such as jewelry, handbags, and accessories.
“These bad actors knew exactly what they were doing when they attempted to evade Amazon’s brand protection systems to sell counterfeit products that clearly infringed on brands’ intellectual property rights,” said Kebharu Smith, director of Amazon’s CCU. “Content creators serve an important role for consumers around the globe, and these lawsuits not only seek to protect Amazon and the affected brands, but also seek to hold accountable those who diminish the role of legitimate content creators.”
Amazon says these defendants attempted to use a hidden links scheme in which they posted links on their social media pages that directed their followers to seemingly generic product listing pages in the Amazon store. Amazon says they blurring the brand’s logo in an attempt to prevent Amazon from finding the knock offs. According to Amazon they would post on social media saying things like “[Amazon] will be taking down so quickly!! Ordering this now!!” In a similar post where Hawat lists multiple counterfeit items she was promoting, she notes “& that’s really it for Amazon! Links get taken down so fast! So far that’s all that’s back up!”
Amazonits partnership with brands of all sizes, says it is working to uncover new approaches counterfeiters take to try to deceive customers and evade the law. The CCU uses that intelligence to equip law enforcement to pursue bad actors. In 2022, the CCU sued or referred for investigation over 1,300 criminals in the U.S., UK, EU, and China.
Amazon says it is dedicated to stopping counterfeit items from being sold on its stores. These lawsuits are one more attempt to stop counterfeit items on the Amazon store.