CEOs of 19 tech companies received 6-year prison sentences for marketing counterfeit Cisco equipment.
For peddling counterfeit Cisco gear, Miami CEO Onur Aksoy received a sentence of more than six years. guilty of wire fraud, mail fraud, and conspiracy. $1B worth of fakes were resold through Pro Network Entities. mandated to make restitution of $100M. sold to hospitals, schools, the Air Force, Navy, and Army.
Onur Aksoy, a tech CEO from Miami who goes by Ron Aksoy and Dave Durden, was found guilty of operating a large-scale scheme to sell counterfeit Cisco equipment and received a sentence of more than six years in jail.
In June 2023, Aksoy entered a guilty plea to charges pertaining to wire fraud, mail fraud, and conspiracy. Between 2013 and 2022, he operated 19 organizations and online stores through which he peddled counterfeit Cisco devices valued at over $1 billion at retail.
These organizations, who go by the name Pro Network Entities, advertised the phony networking gear on eBay and Amazon.As a condition of the plea deal, Aksoy has to reimburse Cisco and the other victims for $100 million.
Critical infrastructure was breached by the fake equipment, endangering the public and private sectors. This encompassed the Navy, Air Force, and Army using confidential U.S. government systems. The operations of fighter jets, bombers, helicopters, and maritime patrol aircraft were put in jeopardy by the bogus components.
In addition, hospitals and schools were unintentionally impacted by the subpar equipment, which frequently broke down or stopped working completely after installation.
U.S. officials and Cisco discovered Aksoy’s fraudulent behavior in 2014. Shipments of counterfeit goods were apprehended, and Aksoy was told to stop doing business. Still, he carried out the plan with Chinese suppliers’ assistance. These vendors would install pirated software and alter discarded or old Cisco gear to look authentic.
US attorney Vikas Khanna emphasized the scope of the operation and the possible harm. He said that Aksoy was held responsible for the “breathtaking scale” of the counterfeit operation by the sentence.Supply chain disruptions are alleged to have presented Cisco with difficulties recently, increasing its susceptibility to counterfeit activity.
