Prada! Hezbollah! Hasenpfeffer Incorporated!
Alternatively, you could always try not supporting organized crime and international terrorism by avoiding buying counterfeit items in Chinatown:
Trish and Kim didn’t realize how dazed they were until they were standing in line at the Chinatown Starbucks on Canal St.
“I’m shaking now,” Kim said Tuesday. “I didn’t realize how scared I was.”
The two Connecticut women, who declined to give their last names, were on their biannual ritual trip to the big city for a little shopping and lots of talking. They always make a point of hitting Canal St., where they stock up on fake Coach, Prada and designer purses for a fraction of what the real bags would cost. On Tuesday, however, their experience was unique.
“Usually, the purses are right on the street. But this time they took us into a small back room behind a hidden door. That’s where the bags were,” said Trish.
While they were in the room, the store attendant who had accompanied them began receiving calls on his cell phone. As he was communicating in Chinese, he urged the women, “Shh, quiet, police, police. Anything you want, cheap. Please, quiet.” Trish and Kim tried not to move for 25 minutes while the attendant spoke on his phone. Finally, he ushered them out of the room and led them to a back door that led into an alley. “Come back to pay, one hour,” he said. “Good price.”
Recounting her adventure as she recoverd in the nearby Starbucks, Kim said if they hadn’t been ushered out so quickly, she would have taken all the bags in the room for the $10 price per bag the attendant was asking. “But I can’t fit any more bags in my closet,” she said, “so it’s probably a good thing.” Prices for the fake bags usually range between $30 and $50.
See also: Interpol Secretary General Ronald K. Noble’s testimony to Congress on the links between intellectual property crime and terrorist financing (July 16, 2003).
Posted: February 13th, 2006 | Filed under: Makes Jack Bauer Scream, "Dammit!"