Amazon Files More Lawsuits Against Luxury Counterfeiters — But Is It Enough?

Amazon and its Counterfeit Crimes Unit (CCU) are continuing its crusade against fake goods with two lawsuits against Kamryn Russell, Ashley Hawat, and their co-conspirators. The suits, which were filed in the federal U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, claim the defendants “knowingly attempted to evade Amazon’s brand protection systems in an effort to promote, advertise, and facilitate the sale of counterfeit luxury fashion goods.”

The lawsuit states that Russell and Hawat attempted to use “hidden links” on their social media pages to direct followers to seemingly generic product listing pages on Amazon that disguised the true nature of the listed items to avoid detection by Amazon, often by blurring the copied brand’s logo. Amazon also claims that Russell and Hawat received commissions from the sales and that the pair’s social media followers knew that if they purchased these seemingly non-branded products, they would actually receive counterfeit luxury goods.

Amazon said that the two defendants urged followers to make purchases before Amazon could take down the listings. The retailer cited social media posts from Hawat in which she acknowledged Amazon’s efforts to remove the infringing products. Posts allegedly included instructions such as “[Amazon] will be taking down so quickly!! Ordering this now!!” and “& that’s really it for Amazon! Links get taken down so fast! So far that’s all that’s back up!”

The CCU has worked jointly with brands to track down counterfeit schemes both on Amazon’s marketplace and across the supply chain. In 2022, the organization sued or referred for investigation over 1,300 criminals in the U.S., UK, EU, and China. These included a lawsuit filed with Cartier against an individual and eight associated businesses for a similar hidden links scheme.

“These bad actors knew exactly what they were doing when they attempted to evade Amazon’s brand protection systems to sell counterfeit products that clearly infringed on brands’ intellectual property rights,” said Kebharu Smith, director of Amazon’s CCU in a press release. “Content creators serve an important role for consumers around the globe, and these lawsuits not only seek to protect Amazon and the affected brands, but also seek to hold accountable those who diminish the role of legitimate content creators.”

Amazon claims to have blocked billions of counterfeit listings before they even came to light, including by investing over $1 billion in fighting the problem. It also hired over 15,000 employees to protect its stores from abuse and fraud and work against the related challenge of fake reviews.

Amazon has no problems with consumers — a survey by Clarify Capital named it the most trusted brand in the country — but luxury retailers in particular are concerned by the rise of counterfeiting. The value of the fake and pirated goods rose to $3 trillion in 2022, three times what it was in 2013, according to Business of Fashion.

However, Amazon still has work to do to fully regain the trust of some of its retail partners and brands. Birkenstock stopped selling shoes directly on Amazon in 2016 due to counterfeits, and Amazon acknowledged its counterfeit problem in front of investors for the first time in 2019, according to CNBC. Additionally, The Ascent has found consumer complaints regarding counterfeits across social media sites. While Amazon is clearly working to combat the problem, it remains to be seen whether its efforts will be enough.