For Press

We gladly work with the press.

Counterfeit products are sold through ordinary online storefronts, and some of them hurt the people who use them: fake car seats, airbags and diet pills. The money behind these fakes funds organized crime and reaches the supply chains this country depends on. That makes it a consumer safety story and a national security story.

We have the data. Tell the story.

We hold vast amounts of marketplace data, built over sixteen years and added to every day. We support journalists willing to tell this story, on deadline or over months. If we don’t have the data you need, we are glad to generate it.

We do this because it helps all of us fight the real problem these bad actors bring.

Where a story could start

Each angle links to the paper or case behind it. Every paper lists its sources.

Angles

Paper 01Consumer safety
Fake car seats, airbags and diet pills are sold under real brand names on major marketplaces
Paper 02National security
The federal government itself calls marketplace counterfeits a national security problem
Paper 03Scale
The border seized nearly 7 times as many counterfeit items in fiscal 2025 as in fiscal 2019
Paper 07Takedowns
A takedown removes a listing, not the person behind it, so the same sellers come back
CaseGSA Inspector General
$100M in fake Cisco gear moved through online storefronts into hospitals, schools and military systems

A sample of what we can show you

90%

of counterfeit seizures now arrive in small e-commerce packages (CBP)

Figures and sources

2024U.S. House / CBP
90% of IP seizures occur in the small-package environment. CBP processes nearly 4 million small packages a day
2026CIS lawsuit study
Of 5,075 Amazon sellers named in 75 counterfeit lawsuits, 91% of those that list an address were in mainland China. That is about 60% of all 5,075; a third list no address
2026CIS lawsuit study
991 of those 5,075 sellers (19.5%) still had a live listing in September 2026. Among sellers named in 2026 cases, 45.5% did
2025U.S. Customs and Border Protection
78.4 million counterfeit and pirated items seized in fiscal 2025, up from 11.4 million in fiscal 2019
2018Government Accountability Office
20 of 47 brand-name items GAO bought from third-party sellers were counterfeit, in a small test GAO said cannot be generalized
2024Amazon, its own figure
Third-party sellers made up 61% of the items Amazon sold in 2024

Working with us

A fast, quotable source

Chris Anderson, PhD, Founder & CEO of Cyber Investigation Services. Sixteen years fighting ecommerce abuse. Reachable the same day. About CIS.

How to reach us

Email chris@cyberinvestigationservices.com. Tell us your deadline and we will work to it.

Who covers this

Reporters on the health, consumer, crime and national security beats each have a piece of this story.

Reporters can write to chris@cyberinvestigationservices.com.

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