Italian citizen sentenced to 37-month prison term for counterfeit Apple products

The U.S. Justice Department said Italian national Rosario La Marca, 54, will spend the next 37 months in prison for illegally smuggling counterfeit iPhones, iPads and iPods from China into the United States.    Italian national Rosario La Marca, 54, has been sentenced to 37 months in prison, as well as one additional year of supervised release, for smuggling counterfeit Apple iPhones, iPads and iPods from China to sell in the United States, according to the U.S. Justice Department.
   La Marca pleaded guilty on Feb. 22 in a federal court in Newark, N.J., to conspiracy to traffic in counterfeit goods, smuggle them into the United States, and structuring financial transactions to hide the behavior.
   According to the court, La Marca admitted during the plea that from July 2009 through February 2014 he and Andreina Becerra, 32, a Venezuelan national; Roberto Volpe, 35, an Italian national; and Jianhua Li, 42, conspired to smuggle more than 40,000 electronic devices and accessories withcounterfeit Apple and Sony trademarks from China into the United States. The estimated manufacturer’s retail prices for an equivalent number of genuine items would have exceeded $15 million. 
   The devices were shipped separately from the labels bearing counterfeit trademarks to avoid detection by Customs and Border Protection. Once they passed through customs, the devices were then labeled and packaged, the Justice Department said.
   “The defendants then re-shipped the devices to conspirators all over the U.S.,” the department explained. “Proceeds from the sales of the devices were funneled back to the defendants’ accounts in Florida and New Jersey via structured cash deposits – broken into multiple deposits of less than $10,000 each to avoid bank reporting requirements – and a portion of the proceeds was then transferred to conspirators in Italy, further disguising the source of the funds.”
   It’s estimated that the defendants made more than 100 illegal wire transfers totaling more than $1.1 million to Hong Kong to support their criminal activity. 
   Volpe and Becerra have also pleaded guilty and are awaiting sentencing. Li has pleaded not guilty.