Memorabilia Crackdown

The folks at Immigration and Customs Enforcement are making the world safer for overpriced sports gear and memorabilia. ICE, in conjuction with the National Football League, the Detroit Police Department and Wayne County Sheriff's Department launched a joint initiative targeting the sale of counterfeit merchandise at Super Bowl XL in which they seized about 43,000 items valued at more than $535,000.

If you think the problem of counterfeit sports merchandise is somewhat less severe than other threats facing the country, Brian M. Moskowitz, special agent in charge of the ICE Office of Investigations in Detroit, says you're wrong. "It's about keeping sub-par and possibly unsafe merchandise off our streets and away from our children; and it's about trying to keep billions of dollars of illicit funds out of the hands of organized criminal groups here and abroad," he said.