U.S. Customs and Border Protection Spokesman Jaime Ruiz says four shipments of fake Christian Louboutin shoes were seized Tuesday, and another shipment was seized July 27. Officials said there were enough of those red soles to add up to a suggested retail value of $18 million, an unbelievable profit. Federal customs officials have stopped more than 20,000 pairs of counterfeit luxury shoes from tip-toeing into the U.S. from China.
– Beware of fake fancy footwear. US customs agents seized about 20,000 pairs of counterfeit Christian Louboutin shoes at the Los Angeles/Long Beach seaport. The shoes came in on a cargo ship from China, and they could have fetched upward of $18 million on the black market, reports ABC News. A pair of the real-deal designer shoes can go for thousands of dollars, notes AP. These fakes will probably be burned. “The original [Christian Louboutin] shoe is made in Italy,” says a customs agent. “Once we saw it was coming in from China, we knew there was a problem with the shipment.”