Michigan Man, Company Sentenced for Counterfeiting to Avoid e-Waste Restrictions
A Michigan company and its owner were sentenced March 25 for trafficking in counterfeit goods and services, and violating environmental laws, to evade restrictions on trade in electronic waste, said the Environmental Protection Agency. Mark Jeffrey Glover was sentenced to 30 months in prison and a $10,000 fine, and his company, Discount Computers, Inc. (DCI), a $2 million fine with $10,839 in restitution. DCI was also sentenced for storing and disposing of hazardous waste without a permit, the EPA said. Glover pleaded guilty to the charges on his behalf and that of his company in October 2012.
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DCI, headquartered in Canton, Mich., with warehouses in Maryland Heights, Mo., and Dayton, N.J., operated as a broker of used electronic components, including computers and televisions, said the EPA. DCI resold working and disassembled broken items, selling them for scrap. A large part of DCI’s business involved exporting used cathode ray tube (CRT) monitors to countries in the Middle East and Asia, it said.
Egypt prohibits the importation of computer equipment which is more than five years old, the EPA said. To evade this requirement, all three DCI locations replaced the original factory labels on used CRT monitors with counterfeit labels, which reflected a more recent manufacture date, it said. Over a five-year period, DCI sent at least 300 shipments to Egypt, with a total shipment value of at least $2.1 million, constituting more than 100,000 used CRT monitors.
Under federal law it is illegal to knowingly use a counterfeit mark on or in connection with goods and services for the purpose of deceit or confusion, said the EPA. It is also illegal to store and dispose of hazardous waste, which includes certain electronic waste, or e-waste, without a permit. Glass from older CRT monitors is known to contain levels of lead, which is toxic hazardous waste, the EPA said. When deposited in a landfill the lead can leach out and contaminate drinking water supplies.
Due to these concerns, these CRT monitors are required to be disposed of as hazardous waste under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, the EPA said. By exporting older CRTs with fraudulent manufacture dates, Glover sent a large quantity of older e-waste overseas which was subjected to improper recycling, increasing the potential for environmental and human exposure to hazardous materials, it said.