A man in Nassau, New York has been charged with counterfeiting Nintendo products. Allegedly, the man, Isaac Lapidus, has been selling bootleg Nintendo products on Amazon from 2018-2025, and has been brought up on charges of Trademark Counterfeiting in the First Degree and Conspiracy in the Fourth Degree, to which he plead not guilty. Both Amazon and Nintendo discovered Lapidus's multiple seller accounts, where he reportedly sold knockoff Nintendo Switch accessories and unlicensed Pokemon Go Plus items, to which they referred his information to Nassau Detective Investigators. The items were seized and are claimed to be bootleg products, by Amazon.

“For years, this defendant allegedly hawked hundreds of thousands of counterfeit Nintendo accessories for popular consoles and games through several Amazon seller accounts he controlled and kept the phony merchandise in an Island Park warehouse for distribution to unsuspecting buyers. Despite consumer complaints about imitation products in their reviews, sales totaled into the millions of dollars,” said DA Donnelly. “Counterfeit products are not just bad for business, they can also be dangerous for consumers, especially when electronics are involved. It may be hard to spot a fake online, but consumers should always look out for poor reviews, try to shop directly from brands or manufacturers – not third-party sellers – and always double-check the seller and shipping source when shopping ecommerce. Simple steps can protect your wallet and your safety.”

Lapidus is alleged to have made over $2 million dollars in gross income from the sales of the bootleg products. He will have to return to court on September 18, 2025, to face trial.

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[NetSanity]

First time in a while that Nintendo has actually filed a seemingly justifiable lawsuit.

 

[Jayro]

Anyone have an example of the stuff he was selling? I'm curious how close it looked to originals.

 

[TehCupcakes]

I bought fake joy-cons once (although I think that was from Ebay, not Amazon.) They looked pretty convincing... Other than the colors being a slightly different shade than official joy-cons, the box and everything looked real. Functionally... The buttons would misfire, the triggers were extra loud, vibration is super aggressive and not nuanced like the "HD rumble" joy-cons are supposed to have, and you can't update the firmware. In other words, cheap crap.

It's one thing to sell third party controllers that are interoperable. It's another thing to try to pass them off as if they are official Nintendo products... That's just dumb. They should be sued for that.

 

[AndorfRequissa]

im interested in how he was advertising the stuff. if he was advertising it as unlicensed stuff cant u make art and stuff?

 

[x65943]

Surprised Nintendo's legal team has time for small fry like this guy when there are fan games out there that still need to be taken down

 

[The Catboy]

Nintendo’s legal team actually doing something!

 

[Marc_LFD]

im interested in how he was advertising the stuff. if he was advertising it as unlicensed stuff cant u make art and stuff?

Amazon is now selling a lot of AliExpress / TEMU stuff these days.

 

[K3Nv4]

"multiple seller accounts" should've been a ban from the get go.

 

[Exnor]

C'mon every body should know not to f*ck with the house of mouse and Nintendo .

This idiot was asking for it.

 

[ChibiMofo]

OMG! So potentially my plastic $49.95 Pokémon figurine wasn't made in Nintendo's Chinese child labor camp?

I'm broken.

 

[NinStar]

Are they planning on suing hundreds of Chinese sellers too?

 

[ChibiMofo]

im interested in how he was advertising the stuff. if he was advertising it as unlicensed stuff cant u make art and stuff?

You cannot use someone else's IP as a basis for your "art" unless it is transformative, at least under US law. And that is a pretty high bar to cross. For example, Andy Warhol -- a blatant copycat -- used a photographer's copyrighted picture of Prince as as basis of his art. That photographer successfully sued the estate of Warhol. Come up with your own art. Don't borrow (read as: steal) someone else's because you know that will make it more likely to sell (which also makes it quite obvious what you are really doing: making unlicensed products).

So selling paintings of Mario is not legal nor should it be any more than Nintendo using some artist's drawing as a basis for a new character in one of their games. But more to the point, this "artist" clearly did not make $2M selling drawings of Princess Peach, so I'm not sure why you would belabor the point. Clearly this dude is an organized criminal trying to counterfeit his way to a life of luxury.

 

[Bladexdsl]

and it took them how long to notice ? people were leaving negative reviews warning people it was fake and they still did nothing

 

[MarkDarkness]

I bought fake joy-cons once (although I think that was from Ebay, not Amazon.) They looked pretty convincing... Other than the colors being a slightly different shade than official joy-cons, the box and everything looked real. Functionally... The buttons would misfire, the triggers were extra loud, vibration is super aggressive and not nuanced like the "HD rumble" joy-cons are supposed to have, and you can't update the firmware. In other words, cheap crap.

It's one thing to sell third party controllers that are interoperable. It's another thing to try to pass them off as if they are official Nintendo products... That's just dumb. They should be sued for that.

So... EXACTLY like the official Joy-Cons, then.

 

[DragonMals]

the man, Isaac Lapidus, has been selling bootleg Nintendo products on Amazon from 2018-2025

Both Amazon and Nintendo discovered Lapidus's multiple seller accounts, where he reportedly sold knockoff Nintendo Switch accessories and unlicensed Pokemon Go Plus items

Lapidus is alleged to have made over $2 million dollars in gross income from the sales of the bootleg products. He will have to return to court on September 18, 2025, to face trial.

I know that Nintendo does dumb decisions sometimes, but this time, this is clearly the indivutial's fault for trying to do the impossible and to see that Nintendo wouldn't find out eventually. I'd like to know why the heck he would attempt such manners. What a fool.

 

[chrisrlink]

their probably just mad cause the shit works and a 1/3 cheaper i bought a few myself until stick drift is fixed i rather buy counterfit at a cheaper price then to shell out $70 a pair everytime my jc's become useless

 

[The Real Jdbye]

If he was selling knockoff accessories and claiming them to be original while pricing them accordingly then he is just scum and he deserves everything that comes his way. Can't be mad at Nintendo about this one.

I bought fake joy-cons once (although I think that was from Ebay, not Amazon.) They looked pretty convincing... Other than the colors being a slightly different shade than official joy-cons, the box and everything looked real. Functionally... The buttons would misfire, the triggers were extra loud, vibration is super aggressive and not nuanced like the "HD rumble" joy-cons are supposed to have, and you can't update the firmware. In other words, cheap crap.

It's one thing to sell third party controllers that are interoperable. It's another thing to try to pass them off as if they are official Nintendo products... That's just dumb. They should be sued for that.

Aren't they also physically wider than real JoyCons, with the buttons/sticks weirdly offset? Or is it a different one than I'm thinking of.

Anyone have an example of the stuff he was selling? I'm curious how close it looked to originals.

This. AliExpress has a lot of knockoff accessories but I haven't seen any that have the Nintendo branding so they couldn't be called counterfeit, since they aren't claiming to be original. I wonder what this guy was actually selling. Or if it was just the same AliExpress crap but with product photos of the real thing.

Some of the knockoff accessories are arguably better than the original ones in some ways, since they fill niches that official accessories don't. For example, Nintendo never made colored Joy-Con straps to match the different colored Joy-Cons. But you can find them on AliExpress.

 

[Ferris1000]

scAmazon’s review system is compromised, their seller vetting is laughable, and their response to fraud is slower than a SNES cartridge on dial-up. Why are we still pretending this is a trustworthy storefront?

 

[Veho]

This. AliExpress has a lot of knockoff accessories but I haven't seen any that have the Nintendo branding so they couldn't be called counterfeit, since they aren't claiming to be original. I wonder what this guy was actually selling.

From articles about the case around the interwebs, it was knockoff accessories and peripherals but branded as Nintendo.

"Donnelly said Nintendo Switch docking stations, docking station adapters and Pokémon Go Plus+ accessories were all counterfeit."