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A small, but relevant story for expats in Shanghai considering their next trip to the US of A. You may want to reconsider including a few fake Rolex watches in your take-home bag of goodies for your friends and family there.
Oregon resident Mike Korpi (interviewed above) brought home eight fake Rolex watches from China his family as gifts. Total value, USD$14.40 or about RMB110. After declaring the watches at customs, they were confiscated, and he thought it was the end of it.
Wrong. The Department of Homeland Security (after a long period of trying to contact Korpi via his ex-wife), issued him with a USD$55,300 fine for importing counterfeit goods. The Department later dropped the case, which left a general question as to why such strong action was taken by the government to fine Korpi so heavily in the first place.
All of this for, what by Korpi's description, would be a high-quality gift to receive.
"These are cheap junk from a dollar store-type deal. They are so obviously fake,''...‘‘You couldn't have gotten five or 10 bucks for them on the street.''
Good quality gift Mike. Maybe you should have chosen a Mao watch instead, the kitsch value is priceless.
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Why would you declare them? What are the rules for this in the US? Would you declare some underpants or socks that you had bought?
These watches are not FAKE Rolexes they are 1:1 scale MODELS :-).
By declaring them, he completely deserves to pay the stupid tax no matter how large.
My Mao watch is great. At least it lasted longer than that stupid Folex. Every time I go to one of the shopping centers I try to bring the broken Folex to sell to the vendors trying to sell me their crap.