Amazon has filed lawsuits against Kamryn Russell, Ashley Hawat, and their co-conspirators over the advertisement and sale of counterfeit luxury fashion products.

Russell and Hawat are accused of posting links on their social media pages that directed their followers to seemingly generic product listing pages in the Amazon store. Their co-conspirators disguised the infringing nature of the products to avoid detection, often by blurring the brand’s logo. 

Russell and Hawat attempted to profit off of the sale of fake goods as they received a commission for each product sold. The conduct could not only damage the reputations of the brands they counterfeited, but also negatively impact legitimate content creators.

“These bad actors knew exactly what they were doing when they attempted to evade Amazon’s brand protection systems to sell counterfeit products that clearly infringed on brands’ intellectual property rights,” said Kebharu Smith, director of Amazon’s Counterfeit Crimes Unit (CCU).

These lawsuits seek to protect Amazon and the affected brands, as well as hold accountable those who diminish the role of legitimate content creators, Smith stated.

In 2022, the CCU sued or referred for investigation over 1300 criminals in the US, UK, EU, and China.