They’ll Knock Off A Couple Of Hours Browsing
Now here’s a story to tell the folks back home in Kansas (or London* or Ireland** or Moscow***, as the case may be):
Posted: April 4th, 2007 | Filed under: New York, New York, It's A Wonderful Town!Twelve tourists on a counterfeit-merchandise buying spree were holed up for more than two hours in the basement of a Chinatown building during a police raid — forbidden to flee by the peddlers.
“The workers said, ‘The cops are outside. You can’t leave,'” said a law-enforcement source.
Midtown North detectives raided 218 Centre St. at about 2 p.m., finding thousands of knockoff designer bags, wallets, shirts and umbrellas — and a handful of customers.
As cops catalogued the stash, a Fifth Precinct cop alerted them of a call about people being held against their will in the basement.
There, cops found tourists from Spain, Georgia and Florida, three peddlers and phony Rolex and Cartier watches.