Am I counterfeit?
HIV is the health problem with the largest racial disparity; 80% of new AIDS diagnoses and deaths are among African Americans and Hispanics. Jimmy Wang didn’t help the situation by distributing more than a million COUNTERFEIT CONDOMS in the New York City area!
Wang, a U.S. immigrant from China was sentenced today to 37 months in prison for trafficking in more than a million counterfeit Trojan condoms, according to Bloomberg News. Condoms tested from the same batch as Wang’s were found to burst, leak and lack spermicide, prosecutors said. The brands seized according to court papers were:
- Trojan Magnum
- Trojan-ENZ
- Trojan Ultra Ribbed
- Trojan Mint Tingle (is mint tingle really such a large market that it’s worth counterfeiting?)
“This defendant rather callously, in exchange for money, was willing to put a lot of people at high risk” for serious diseases such as HIV, the retrovirus that causes AIDS, the judge said, according to the Bloomberg article.
“To the best of our knowledge, the counterfeit condoms are no longer available for sale,” Geoffrey Potter, a lawyer for Church & Dwight at Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler LLP in New York, told the judge today. “We have not for a very long time received any reports or consumer complaints about counterfeit condoms nor have we found any on store shelves. But there is still a need to deter and to punish.”
One question: How do you know if you have counterfeit condom?
Here’s more from today’s Bloomberg article:
The condoms were imported from China by ZX Trading Corp., a sham company in Queens, New York, used by the ring to evade U.S. customs officials, prosecutors said.
Wang pleaded guilty on Nov. 17 to trafficking in counterfeit goods. He is the first defendant in the case to be sentenced. All pleaded guilty except Jian Zhong Hu, also known as Andy, who remains a fugitive in China.
Church & Dwight cooperated with the government in its investigation and conducted a separate probe that resulted in the seizure of more than 4.3 million fake condoms, the company said in court papers.
For information on where you can get condoms, check out this post on the Latino Sexuality Blog: http://latinosexuality.blogspot.com/2009/06/condoms-that-are-barely-there.html
What do you think? Leave comments below or share them with us on Twitter and Facebook.
Do you like Dos Lives? Be sure to subscribe to more of our content through the links below:
Follow @DLWorldView Follow @DosLives
Subscribe to the Dos Lives Daily Email
Watch and Submit Videos on DL WORLDVIEW
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Subscribe to the DL Podcast for a weekly look at the top stories, trends and more:
