Fort Myers Resident Convicted Of Trafficking

Tampa, Florida – Acting United States Attorney W. Stephen Muldrow announces that a federal jury has found Jason Sanon (30, Ft. Myers) guilty of conspiracy to traffic in counterfeit trademarks on DVDs and trafficking in DVDs bearing counterfeit trademarks. His sentencing hearing is scheduled for June 1, 2017.

According to the testimony and evidence presented at trial, Sanon owned and operated WipeoutDVDs.com, an online company that sold counterfeit DVDs to retail customers across the United States, from the end of 2010 until mid-2013. Sanon bought the DVDs that he sold from TM Wholesale, a Chinese manufacturer of counterfeit DVDs. The testimony established that Sanon had bought at least $600,000 in movies and TV box sets from his source in China, and then re-sold them for a profit to his customers. All of the DVDs that Sanon sold through his company bore counterfeit trademarks and logos of the movie studios that had produced the authentic versions of these disks.

The investigation leading to this prosecution was the off-shoot of a related investigation conducted by the Department of Homeland Security which resulted in the successful prosecution of 15 other individuals who had also trafficked in counterfeit DVDs from the same Chinese source. That investigation led to criminal forfeitures of over $2,400,000 and other seizures of vehicles and a business in Polk County.

This case was investigated by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations, with the assistance of the Motion Picture Association of America. It is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Jay L. Hoffer, continuing the work that had previously been done by former Assistant United States Attorney Mark Bini.