If you're planning on heading to NYC's Chinatown for a knockoff purse, wallet or watch before Christmas - you might want to reconsider. The NYPD raided a bunch of storefronts along Canal Street this week - and closed many of the counterfeit peddlers down.
Canal Street (the main drag running through Chinatown) usually looks like this...
But this Tuesday it looked like this...
The Chinatown counterfeit merchandise business has changed since I moved to NYC. Fifteen years ago the Canal Street shops openly displayed counterfeit merchandise with the actual brand-name logos on it (Chanel, Gucci, Louis Vuitton, etc.). The police just ignored it - saying they had bigger and better things to worry about.
But then the major fashion houses started pressuring the city to crack down on the counterfeiters (which costs them billions of dollars in revenue). And the city responded ... forcing the "really good" counterfeits off the street and behind closed doors. After the crackdown, store-owners displayed "similar but not exact" reproductions - but not actual knockoffs. Brand names such as "Channel" are common.
Now - if you want the "good stuff" - you have to go on a little bit of a mission. When you hit Canal Street you'll see Asian women carrying signs with pictures of "real" (LOL!) "designer" bags. If you want a "real Gucci" or a "real Chanel" bag, you point to which one you want.
The women will size you up (trying to determine if you are a police officer) - and if you pass muster they'll take you to a secret location. Many of these places are separate warehouses where you are literally locked in (to prevent police raids) before you can make purchases. Others are just back rooms behind the regular storefronts.
My friend's elderly mother went down to Chinatown about a year ago (she was visiting from Houston), and found herself in one of these warehouses. As she was negotiating with a gentleman over the price of a bag, people started yelling - and the Chinese "staff" of the building took off running. My friend's mom didn't know what was happening, so she ran after the guy yelling "But I want to buy that bag!!!!". Luckily the police didn't bust HER.
