The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department (LASD) unearthed an illicit operation to sell a massive trove of Nike, Adidas and Fear of God apparel and footwear dupes.
The department’s Community Partnership Bureau Counterfeit and Piracy Enforcement Team (CAPE) was tipped off in early August to a shipment that was intercepted at one of the Golden State’s ports of entry. An inspection revealed thousands of branded streetwear items destined for a commercial warehouse in the city of Arcadia, Calif.
CAPE team deputies, along with federal special agents, served as search warrant at the location on Aug. 25 for the sale and distribution of counterfeit trademarked products. At the scene, officers and agents recovered 25,898 fake, branded items with an estimated retail value of $10 million.
According to a report from LASD released Tuesday, no arrests were made during the search and seizure and the investigation into the Arcadia business is ongoing.
The CAPE team works in tandem with LASD patrol stations and detectives to develop and share techniques for identifying fakes and to further investigations into businesses—known as fences—who sell the illicit goods. Most recently, the department said that the 2026 World Cup events held in L.A. served as a venue for the sale of counterfeits.
Over the course of the past year, CAPE has served about 25 warrants across L.A. County related to counterfeit sales and has recovered around 200,000 products valued between $15-25 million. The recent operation represents a major bust for the department.
The effort to combat escalating instances of counterfeiting coincides with statewide efforts to tamp down retail crime.
The L.A. suburb of Burbank’s local police department, for example, took part in a statewide organized retail theft operation known as “Summer Blitz” that culminated in the arrest of 17 suspects in mid-August.
In collaboration with the Los Angeles Organized Retail Crime Association (LAORCA) and the California Highway Patrol Organized Retail Crime Task Force, the Burbank Police Department worked with loss prevention staff from local retailers at the Empire Center shopping center like Marshall’s, TJ Maxx, Walmart, Target, REI, Nordstrom Rack, Lowe’s, and Ulta, arresting more than a dozen individuals for retail theft offenses ranging from misdemeanors to felonies.
Such blitzes are a part of efforts championed by Governor Gavin Newsom’s office to stop a scourge of retail crime in California. Three years ago, he announced the state’s largest-ever single investment to aid statewide organized retail crime-fighting units. The California Board of State and Community Corrections (BSCC) awarded more than $267 million to 55 local law enforcement agencies, including 34 police departments, seven sheriffs’ departments, one probation department and 13 district attorney offices.
Earlier this summer, an update from the Golden State’s law enforcement agencies tallied 32,613 arrests, 25,843 cases referred for prosecution, and almost $260 million in recovered stolen goods since October 2023.
The governor’s office has also touted California’s progress in taking part in national retail crime operations, knowing that such crimes often span multiple states. From Aug. 1-9, CHP joined over 100 law enforcement agencies from across the country for the “National Organized Retail Crime Blitz,” which led to the recovery of 8,500 stolen items valued at over $1 million and the arrest of 97 suspects.
“We’ve been doing the work for seven years—we didn’t wait for a national headline to start taking organized retail crime seriously,” Newsom said. “We’ve built the partnerships, invested in the personnel and gave law enforcement the tools to go after the networks behind these crimes.”
On Monday, the governor’s office released data showing that the crackdown on retail crime may be part of a broader downward trend in illegal activity in California.
Since 2024, California has seen double-digit declines across all major crime categories tracked at the state level, including robbery (19.9 percent), property crime (14.3 percent), motor vehicle theft (25.8 percent), violent crime (10.2 percent) and homicide (18.6 percent). Last year alone, every statewide crime rate fell, the governor’s office said.
