Security News > 2023 > June > CEO guilty of selling counterfeit Cisco devices to military, govt orgs
A Florida man has pleaded guilty to importing and selling counterfeit Cisco networking equipment to various organizations, including education, government agencies, healthcare, and the military.
A U.S. Department of Justice announcement published yesterday says Aksoy pleaded guilty in the U.S. District Court of New Jersey, admitting that he defrauded many people and companies by selling them low-quality equipment made to appear as new Cisco models.
According to the DOJ, Pro Network Entities imported old, used, or low-grade network equipment from China and Hong Kong, having the exporters modify the equipment so it appears as genuine, brand-new Cisco devices.
Between 2014 and 2022, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection caught 180 shipments of counterfeit Cisco devices sent to Pro Network Entities.
The Chinese sellers even added pirated Cisco software and incorporated components that would help bypass software license-checking mechanisms that Cisco software uses to verify it runs on genuine hardware.
In July 2021, law enforcement agents executed a search warrant at Aksoy's warehouse and found and confiscated over a thousand fake Cisco devices with a retail value of over $7,000,000.