Warehouse manager in Queens, 34-year-old Zhi Zeng, was arrested after it was revealed that the premises were filled with counterfeit No. 95 masks. pandemic COVID-19.
The warehouse is located in Long Island City. Inside, this brick building was filled to the ceiling with boxes with the logo of the real company 3M. But the content was fake, and clever enough.
“They looked like they were genuine, and they felt like they were, too,” Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz said at a press conference. “The only way to determine that they did not provide the necessary protection was the expert examination carried out during the investigation.”
Everything was done quite professionally. Only the barcodes and numbers on the documents accompanying the 3M product boxes were not true.
The investigation began on a signal received from an informant. After that, three disguised police officers posing as buyers set out to develop a dubious warehouse. By that time, one company from the south of the country managed to buy fakes worth $ 700 thousand. This means that due to the crooks, the medical staff who were on the front line of the fight against the coronavirus for a long time, unknowingly, were in danger.
But most of the 1.7 million fake masks were confiscated by timely law enforcement interventions before they left the warehouse to consumers.
The investigation continues. The detectives are trying to establish where the fake N95 was produced.
Newspaper headline:
The scammers were selling fakes