Last Saturday, this small island nation of the Bahamas was stunned to learn that the US Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) had arrested 11 Bahamian straw market vendors in New York. They were on a buying trip to purchase fake consumer goods such as purses, bags, sunglasses and other designer items.
ICE and Homeland Security had monitored the group for six months and arrested the Bahamians at a New York airport along with a load of counterfeit purses and other items. Police officials estimate that had the purses been genuine, the value would have been between $600,000 and a million dollars.
Appearing in NY court on Monday were Roshanda Rolle, Gayle Rolle, Marva Ferguson, Marvette Ferguson, Patricia Hanna, Shamone Thompson, Margaret Pierre, Judy Duncombe and Tracy Davis. They could each face up to three years in prison.
The "world famous straw market" in Nassau is rife with fake items. The seven photographs in this report were taken earlier this morning. Although plaited straw works are sold, the largest dollar volume in the straw market is the sale of fake luxury goods. Around three million cruise visitors disembark at Nassau every year, and American make up 90% of the market.
Nassau residents are irate at the US, and many forums accuse the US of taken bread out of the mouths of hard-working straw market vendors.
The Bahamas is a signatory to the Berne Conventions and other treaties on Intellectual Property Protection, but there is no political will to prosecute them for fear of losing votes and public support. Even though the vast array of fake goods in the Straw Market is illegal, the police will not act without consulting the politicians. No action has been taken to remove the goods, even though the Bahamas Ministry of Foreign Affairs is involved in the case of the Bahamian vendors in New York.
This case is bound to draw attention to Customs and Homeland Security agents inspected cruise passengers when they disembark from a Caribbean cruise.
Tourists caught possessing fake goods and entering the United States can face prosecution including fines and jail.
So if you are in the Bahamas, and see that Fendi, or Gucci purse that normally sells for a $1,000, on sale at the straw market for $50 -- you had better resist buying it. It could buy you a whole lot of trouble on re-entering the United States.