In September 2017, Shi Wei Zheng, 42, pleaded guilty to U.S. District Judge John Michael Vazquez when charged with trafficking counterfeit goods. The Staten Island man brought in over $2.5 million worth of fake UGG boots, received in containers through the Port of Newark.
Zheng had been receiving these containers from a connection overseas between September 2016 and February 2017 and asking port workers to move them out of the way to evade examinations by agents of Border Protection and U.S. Customs. He paid $50,000 for cooperation and planned to distribute the 15,000 pairs of boots for a total of $2.5 million, Daily News reports.
But before his first sale, Zheng was impeded by law enforcement. The containers were searched and officials determined that the merchandise was fake, cutting off his entire operation.
On Tuesday (Jan. 23), the federal judge gave Zheng a two-and-a-half year sentence. After Zheng’s time is up, he’ll serve two years of supervised release to assure that he doesn’t return to bootlegging.