Border patrol seized $290,000 worth of counterfeit Apple AirPods Pro and Watches at Virginia airport

• US Customs and Border Patrol officers detained four shipments of Apple products suspected to be fake.
• The products, Apple AirPods Pro and Apple Watches which came from China, were seized.
• The total retail value of the electronics was around $290,000.

In mid-March, US Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) officers suspected something was off when four shipments  containing Apple products — more specifically 1,000 Apple AirPods Pro and 50 Apple Watches — arrived at the Washington Dulles Airport in Virginia from China, per a CBP press release. 

The suspicion proved to be warranted, as the shipments were determined to be filled with $289,500 worth of counterfeit Apple goods, as appraised by trade experts at the CBP's Machinery Centers of Excellence and Expertise.

After detaining the shipments, officers submitted documentation of the cargo within and seized the load on March 29. 

So far, no one has been criminally charged for the bootlegging attempt.

CBP did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.

Last year, officers seized nearly 25 million counterfeit items that, had they been genuine, would have had a retail value of $2.98 billion. Handbags and wallets were the most common items seized, accounting for 30.3% of all seizures, the agency reported.

Seized watches and jewlery accounted for the highest percentage of the total value of counterfeit items last year, coming in 40% or $1.14 billion.

Counterfeit Apple products are nothing new. In 2021, Apple confirmed to Insider that it had a team working with law enforcement and other stakeholders to monitor and remove counterfeit Apple products from social media sites.

In 2020, Apple removed more than one million online listings for counterfeit products, with most of these sellers based in China.