Amazon announces lawsuits against ‘bad actors’ selling counterfeit goods

Amazon and its Counterfeit Crimes Unit or CCU announced the filing of two new lawsuits against Kamryn Russell, Ashley Hawat, and their co-conspirators who 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. Amazon works across the globe to fight counterfeiters, filing joint lawsuits with brands to eliminate the sale of counterfeits not only in Amazon’s store but across the supply chain. Through its partnership with brands of all sizes, Amazon’s CCU constantly uncovers 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. In this case, both Russell and Hawat 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. Russell and Hawat’s co-conspirators disguised the infringing nature of the products they were selling in order to avoid detection by Amazon and the brand, often by blurring the brand’s logo. Russell and Hawat’s social media posts then made it clear to their followers that if they purchased these seemingly non-infringing and non-branded products, they would actually receive counterfeit luxury products. These bad actors also urged their followers to buy these products before Amazon could take down the listings.