Chinese Man Gets 30 Months For Fake Cisco Sales 161
alphadogg writes "A Chinese man was sentenced to two-and-a-half years in a US prison this week for trafficking in counterfeit Cisco Systems gear. Yongcai Li, 33, will also have to pay the networking company nearly $800,000 in restitution after being the conduit for hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of counterfeit computer hardware, the FBI said Friday. Prosecutors said he procured the fake gear in China and then sent it to co-conspirators in the US. His alleged co-conspirators have not been charged. Li was arrested by FBI agents on Jan. 9, 2009, in Las Vegas — while the annual Consumer Electronics Show was taking place there. Two years ago, the FBI claimed to have seized more than $78 million worth of counterfeit equipment in more than 400 seizures."
Re:Bastards (Score:3, Interesting)
Not if they rolled on him for a lighter sentence.
Re:Bastards (Score:3, Interesting)
Perhaps because they cut a deal with the DA's office?
Signals little for Google et. al. (Score:5, Interesting)
What constitutes "fake" hardware? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Excuse me, editors? (Score:5, Interesting)
And with good behavior, it could be low as ~25 months.
IMHO, a tad over 2 years prison sentence is a relatively *small* risk, compared to say illicit drug sales, for huge financial rewards ... this may actually *encourage* some to get into selling counterfeit electronics.
Ron
Re:What constitutes "fake" hardware? (Score:5, Interesting)
On top of all this, this kind of story will hurt Cisco's brand image as well. Next time you go out to buy something from a small electronics store, you may decide to go with a different brand since you know for a fact that many counterfeit Cisco products have been packaged and sold as the real thing.
Re:What constitutes "fake" hardware? (Score:5, Interesting)
I have some "fake" Cisco WIC cards for the 2600 series here in a couple of routers. I'll tell you that they work just as well as regular Cisco WIC cards, and the systems you install them into can't tell the difference. These have been running reliably for years now.
Cisco is begging for a counterfeit market for their parts, because they mark up prices to insane levels.
True, it's the research, development, documentation, and support that makes their products great, but charging what they charge is just stupid.
Here's an example;
Intel 2-port 10Gig network card, $2500.00
http://www.cdw.com/shop/products/default.aspx?EDC=1352161 [cdw.com]
Same EXACT card but branded as Cisco costs over $14000.00
http://www.cdw.com/shop/products/default.aspx?edc=1424619 [cdw.com]
Yes, these are the same cards, my company has several of the large ASA firewalls that these go into, and the Intel cards. Sit them side by side and they are identical. At most, different firmware, but I doubt it. I've never actually tried since we can't be dorking around with production equipment.
Newer Cisco routers and switches are now using licensing for features and ports, so installing non-Cisco-extortion-priced parts won't really be an issue anyway. Reference the 3750-E/3560-E switches and those new 1900/2900/3900 series routers.
Re:What constitutes "fake" hardware? (Score:2, Interesting)
Cheap lead-based solder could be used with the RoHS label.
Just FYI, lead-based solder is superior to RoHS. Even the "cheap" stuff. When people talk about "cheap, lead-based solder" they actually mean inexpensive.
If I could find someone using actual lead solder for my circuitry, I'd buy it in a heartbeat over the RoHS. As an example, had the solder on the original XBOX 360 been lead instead of RoHS, the solder wouldn't have broken under heat stress & they'd have had fewer problems with the red rings showing up.
We use the RoHS to keep the hippies quiet(er).
Re:What constitutes "fake" hardware? (Score:1, Interesting)
I have some "fake" Cisco WIC cards for the 2600 series here in a couple of routers. I'll tell you that they work just as well as regular Cisco WIC cards, and the systems you install them into can't tell the difference. These have been running reliably for years now.
Cisco is begging for a counterfeit market for their parts, because they mark up prices to insane levels.
True, it's the research, development, documentation, and support that makes their products great, but charging what they charge is just stupid.
Here's an example;
Intel 2-port 10Gig network card, $2500.00
http://www.cdw.com/shop/products/default.aspx?EDC=1352161 [cdw.com]
Same EXACT card but branded as Cisco costs over $14000.00
http://www.cdw.com/shop/products/default.aspx?edc=1424619 [cdw.com]
Yes, these are the same cards, my company has several of the large ASA firewalls that these go into, and the Intel cards. Sit them side by side and they are identical. At most, different firmware, but I doubt it. I've never actually tried since we can't be dorking around with production equipment.
Newer Cisco routers and switches are now using licensing for features and ports, so installing non-Cisco-extortion-priced parts won't really be an issue anyway. Reference the 3750-E/3560-E switches and those new 1900/2900/3900 series routers.
I've processed enough Cisco Sales orders and man their equipment is definitely high priced. The difference between a 500 gig hd for a CIVS is mad expensive even though it's a sata drive.
Re:Bastards (Score:4, Interesting)
For people outside the US, this whole cutting deals and plead bargain stuff reads like, the whole system of justice is corrupt to the bone by design.
Re:What constitutes "fake" hardware? (Score:5, Interesting)
And if the quality is sub-par they're going to be complaining about crappy Cisco hardware when it's not Cisco's fault, affecting their brand image.
All true. Do you know if Cisco is honoring warranties on the counterfeits. Surely when you call in a TAC case, they know from the serial number if it's legitimate or not.
Re:Excuse me, editors? (Score:3, Interesting)
a) that they can track all goods he has sold, believe it or not most criminals don't like to make it easy to track any of their illegal goods.
b) he actually has the money to pay back, he could have hidden the funds in any number of ways to appear bankrupt or at least hide a nice portion off for himself, again he is a criminal and it doesn't take a genius to work out police may one day catch up to you therefore hide some for a rainy day.
The penalty here vs the risk involved seems very favourably balanced in the criminals favour here.
Re:What constitutes "fake" hardware? (Score:5, Interesting)
This. This right fucking here. This is why I don't care if something hurts Cisco. They're bastards on their pricing and turning EVERYTHING in to an extra charge. Read the fine print, read the instructions twice, and keep a good hold of your wallet when you go in to buy Cisco. You are getting in to a product that will probably run you 4-5 times the already overblown up front price tag they initially show you once you get through licenses, support, etc.
I've started building linux firewalls for small to medium businesses on recycled hardware. Businesses that were seriously considering (and often buy) hugely overpriced Cisco systems that don't really deliver... well... anything for their astronomical price. It works out a helluva lot better, and they never *need* support. Once you get in to enterprise level needs, you should be dealing with Juniper and the like since they actually deliver something amazingly capable for the price. Unlike Cisco.
Why the hell is Cisco still in business, again?
Re:What constitutes "fake" hardware? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Signals little for Google et. al. (Score:4, Interesting)
There's a difference between a counterfeit and just copying something.
Counterfeiting is generally bad, because even within China, people need to know if what they're buying is legit. I'm sure even the Chinese government doesn't want to buy a piece of equipment that is an inferior copy rebadged with the name and product ID of something reputable (eg. Cisco).
Whereas, copying an item so it's identical, but just rebadging it with your own name (eg. Siskow) is only an affront to the legalities of patents and copyright. At half the price, I'm sure the Chinese would be happy to buy your Siskow product.
On the one hand you have fraud (or at best a trademark violation), on the other you have patent/copyright infringement.
Re:What constitutes "fake" hardware? (Score:2, Interesting)
Not really the cheap you intend, but USA military often removes the RoHS solder for the old fashioned lead solder. They do this because there is a LOT of data to back up the lead solder, and lead-free solder hasn't been studied enough. Their putting trusting something they know (good and bad on lead) instead of an unknown (lead-free).
What goes around, comes around (Score:5, Interesting)
Cisco seemed to put up with this for a while, since almost all of the hardware was kept within China. Then, sometime in the last ten years, I can't remember when, Huawei started selling Cisco-like hardware worldwide. At that point, Cisco sued and forced them to stop all international sales of the disputed products. Later, Huawei rewrote its router code and even licensed code from another American company.
So, what to do with all that surplus manufacturing capacity?
Re:What constitutes "fake" hardware? (Score:3, Interesting)
If the goods where made on the company's own production line, that would be theft rather than counterfeit. The products made in that factory belongs to the company regardless of quality control or time of manufacture.