Onur Aksoy’s $100m Of Counterfeit Cisco Equipment

Join me to hear the story of Onur Aksoy and how he counterfeited over $100m in Cisco networking equipment! This is eCrimeBytes Season 3 Episode 18, Onur Aksoy’s $100m Of Counterfeit Cisco Equipment.

Sources:

Transcript:

00:00:00:00 – 00:00:17:55
Onur Aksoy
Hello, my name is Onur Aksoy. Welcome to Pro Network. This is a company that I own.

00:00:18:00 – 00:00:32:06
Dr. Keith Jones
Whoa. Much nicer warehouse than I was in the last episode. Hey, listeners. Welcome to eCrimeBytes. This is where I research the court documentation and roast the criminals, so you don’t have to.

00:00:32:11 – 00:00:36:45
Onur Aksoy
Hey, Keith, where did you get this picture of me?

00:00:36:50 – 00:00:48:31
Dr. Keith Jones
Heh heh heh heh. I got this from your Facebook profile. See, I thought it was perfect because you were dressed up for the occasion. Now, I got a question for you. What’s on that monitor over there on the wall.

00:00:48:36 – 00:00:55:41
Onur Aksoy
Oh, this here. This is a picture of the outside of this building. This is what it looks like on Google Maps.

00:00:55:46 – 00:01:01:03
Dr. Keith Jones
All right. I’m with you so far. What do you store in this warehouse? Why do you need it?

00:01:01:08 – 00:01:22:34
Onur Aksoy
Keith, we need a lot of space to store all the computer equipment we have. See, we’re a seller of computer equipment. When people need computer equipment, they come to us and they buy it, and we sell all sorts of stuff. But really, all you’re going to care about in this episode is the Cisco equipment that we sell.

00:01:22:39 – 00:01:30:20
Dr. Keith Jones
It sounds like you sold a lot of Cisco switches and routers. Let me pop one of Cisco’s websites on the screen here.

00:01:30:25 – 00:01:40:46
Onur Aksoy
Keith, this might not look like much, but boy, we can sell these things at a thousand, $2,000 a pop. They’re really expensive.

00:01:40:51 – 00:01:48:20
Dr. Keith Jones
Okay, I get it. So these boxes you have over here, these are all full of Cisco switches and routers.

00:01:48:25 – 00:01:59:12
Onur Aksoy
Yep. Any time you see those, you can think that’s the backbone of the internet right there. Now, see, what’s interesting is my equipment has made it into a lot of places.

00:01:59:16 – 00:02:04:32
Dr. Keith Jones
Damn it, Onur you know, I cannot just pass that by and not make a dick joke.

00:02:04:37 – 00:02:25:41
Onur Aksoy
Hah hah hah I knew you would, Keith. Since Cisco switches are used as the backbone of the internet, you can imagine my equipment has made it into medical centers like this one. And my equipment has made it into military organizations where they support fighter jets, too!

00:02:25:46 – 00:02:41:13
Dr. Keith Jones
This is pretty amazing. It looks like you’re doing pretty well for yourself. I mean, looking around your warehouse, I find piles of money just sitting around. You have to tell me, how do you do this? How are you so successful?

00:02:41:18 – 00:03:01:45
Onur Aksoy
Keith, it was a shit ton of work. I do this between 2014 and 2022. See, it all starts with the hookup that I have from a Chinese businessman. And I use air quotes here, which is pretty awkward considering I don’t have hands.

00:03:01:49 – 00:03:07:16
Chinese Businessman
Hi there, I am Onur’s Chinese businessman.

00:03:07:21 – 00:03:16:03
Onur Aksoy
So this guy is my hookup. You see, when I need equipment to sell to my customers, I come to this guy and he gives me my equipment.

00:03:16:08 – 00:03:21:31
Chinese Businessman
Come on. Are we all just going to ignore the equipment dick joke here?

00:03:21:36 – 00:03:34:14
Onur Aksoy
Hah hah of course, my man. Keith already made it earlier. So I come to this guy and I tell him I need the newest Cisco equipment for my customers. Wink, wink.

00:03:34:19 – 00:03:47:01
Chinese Businessman
Funny thing is, Keith, I don’t have the latest Cisco equipment, but I can make equipment that sure looks like the latest Cisco equipment. Hahahahaha!

00:03:47:06 – 00:03:51:54
Dr. Keith Jones
My God, you both have creepy voices. Hah hah. I love it.

00:03:51:59 – 00:04:03:49
Onur Aksoy
So in other words, this wily son of a bitch sells me Cisco counterfeit equipment that I then sell to my customers and pretend that it’s normal equipment.

00:04:03:54 – 00:04:07:03
Chinese Businessman
Really? Now nobody’s going to touch that equipment joke.

00:04:07:08 – 00:04:20:30
Dr. Keith Jones
Oh, I get it. So you basically take old Cisco insides and put them into what looks like new outside. So your customers think they’re buying something a little newer, right?

00:04:20:34 – 00:04:36:56
Onur Aksoy
Oh, Keith, we’re even more wily than that. We change the software so the software looks like it’s newer, too. So if someone were to log in to verify the model number and version of this Cisco switch, the software would lie to them as well.

00:04:37:01 – 00:04:41:04
Dr. Keith Jones
So how much money did you spend with your Chinese businessman?

00:04:41:09 – 00:05:02:33
Onur Aksoy
$55 million. But you’ll see that I’ll usually double my money. So now I’m making money hand over fist. But I have another problem. CBP. Yes. Customs and Border Patrol started catching my shipments.

00:05:02:38 – 00:05:07:27
CBP K9
Welcome to a nondescript Customs and Border Patrol mailroom.

00:05:07:31 – 00:05:12:52
CBP Officer
Hold up. I found some of Onur’s equipment over here.

00:05:12:57 – 00:05:31:23
CBP K9
Think God Keith made the equipment dick joke earlier because I wouldn’t be able to handle myself. So, if I’m not mistaken, it looks like Onur sends his packages in big shipments like you found over there. Well, that makes it really obvious, doesn’t it?

00:05:31:28 – 00:05:36:47
Onur Aksoy
Damn it, you sons of bitches! All right, well, I’ve got something for you.

00:05:36:52 – 00:05:49:07
CBP K9
Come on, Onur. You’re obviously not a rocket scientist. Sending smaller shipments like you see over here on the left hand side, well, we caught those too.

00:05:49:12 – 00:05:50:04
Onur Aksoy
Ahhhh damn it.

00:05:50:09 – 00:06:06:27
CBP Officer
Onur, we thought it was pretty sneaky how you would take these packages and ship them to undeliverable locations. And only after we would pass them through customs, you would change them to your company’s address. That was pretty sneaky.

00:06:06:32 – 00:06:09:24
Onur Aksoy
Yeah. I thought you wouldn’t catch me if I would do that.

00:06:09:28 – 00:06:12:11
CBP K9
You’re a moron. We still caught you.

00:06:12:16 – 00:06:26:40
Onur Aksoy
I know, at least according to my records, you guys caught at least 180 shipments of mine, which had approximately 860 devices. And that was over $5 million out of my pocket.

00:06:26:45 – 00:06:29:33
CBP K9
That’s exactly why we’re here.

00:06:29:38 – 00:06:42:54
CBP Officer
Just one more question for you, Onur. With these addresses, there was a name associated with them, Dave Durden. Now, is this Tyler Durden from Fight Club… Is that his cousin?

00:06:42:59 – 00:06:48:15
Onur Aksoy
Damn it, you caught me. I’m actually Dave Durden. Dave Durden is me.

00:06:48:19 – 00:06:54:06
CBP K9
Like I said, not a rocket scientist.

00:06:54:10 – 00:07:04:34
Onur Aksoy
Well, if you send enough packages, some will get through, right? I made at least $100 million from this scheme that the government knows about.

00:07:04:39 – 00:07:12:00
Dr. Keith Jones
That’s a tremendous amount of money. Now, tell me a little bit about how you managed to sell that much product.

00:07:12:05 – 00:07:46:07
Onur Aksoy
Well, Keith, we used a series of Amazon and eBay stores now with Amazon. We sold at least 61,000 devices with a total sales of nearly $50 million. That’s just Amazon Keith. And then I have a bunch of eBay stores that make millions of dollars for me as well. I would sell this equipment approximately 60 to 88% off of Cisco’s suggested retail price.

00:07:46:12 – 00:07:49:27
Onur Aksoy
So you can imagine a lot of people wanted to buy this stuff from me.

00:07:49:31 – 00:07:59:12
Dr. Keith Jones
All right. But all these devices are clearly counterfeit. So I can’t imagine they really worked like the original products you’re pretending them to be right?

00:07:59:16 – 00:08:21:07
Onur Aksoy
Oh, don’t you know it? We got all sorts of complaints, Keith. So what would happen is one of these stores would get a lot of complaints about the counterfeit equipment that we sold, and we would just shut it down and then open up a new store with a new company name. It worked really well for a really long time.

00:08:21:12 – 00:08:30:25
Dr. Keith Jones
What gets me is this camera view out front of this angry mob of people pissed off that you sold them a bunch of Cisco equipment that was counterfeit.

00:08:30:30 – 00:08:39:24
Onur Aksoy
Oh, yeah. Keith. And it’s a little known fact that shirtless dudes are very, very serious about their Cisco equipment.

00:08:39:28 – 00:08:54:15
Dr. Keith Jones
Whoa. No kidding. Well, it looks like you’re taking your life into your own hands here, buddy. All right, so I also read that Cisco sent you more than seven cease and desist letters between June of 2014 and August of 2019.

00:08:54:19 – 00:09:15:22
Onur Aksoy
Fuck those guys, Keith. What do I care about them? But what I did care about was the FBI showing up later on, and they executed a search warrant here in my warehouse, and they found thousands of purported Cisco devices, and it totaled to over $7 million.

00:09:15:27 – 00:09:19:59
Dr. Keith Jones
All right, well, I’m on the edge of my seat. What happens next?

00:09:20:04 – 00:09:23:31
Onur Aksoy
Hello, Clarice.

00:09:23:36 – 00:09:26:46
Dr. Keith Jones
Well, damn, they locked you up, huh?

00:09:26:51 – 00:09:51:09
Onur Aksoy
Yeah. I didn’t have much choice other than to plead guilty right away, but I didn’t plead guilty to everything. I just pled guilty to two counts. One was conspiracy to trafficking counterfeit goods, and the other was mail fraud. I also agreed to forfeit my Miami house. And it had a gated driveway, Keith. Look at this picture. This was an amazing house.

00:09:51:14 – 00:10:01:50
Onur Aksoy
And then the goddamn government took about a half a million of my dollars. And they took all my counterfeit devices too!

00:10:01:55 – 00:10:04:50
Dr. Keith Jones
Those bastards! So did you get sentenced to prison?

00:10:04:55 – 00:10:08:39
Onur Aksoy
Yeah. My judge came back and said.

00:10:08:43 – 00:10:21:20
Dr. Keith Jones
If I was a shirtless dude, I’d be really, really angry right now. So therefore, I’m going to sentence you to six and a half years for these crimes.

00:10:21:25 – 00:10:24:47
Onur Aksoy
Ah six and a half years?

00:10:24:52 – 00:10:29:55
Dr. Keith Jones
Hah hah I dunno, man. I thought that was quite light for the $100 million that they know about.

00:10:30:00 – 00:10:34:39
Onur Aksoy
I wonder if they’re going to like my equipment in prison.

00:10:34:44 – 00:10:47:26
Dr. Keith Jones
Heh heh heh Onur, be sure to ask them exactly like that. Hey, listener, if you enjoyed this, please like and subscribe, and I hope to see you back at our next episode. Thanks. Bye.

00:10:47:31 – 00:11:12:38
Onur Aksoy
See you later, you crazy bastards!

DrKeithJones.com

Onur Aksoy’s $100m Of Counterfeit Cisco Equipment

Sources:

Transcript:

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