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.

Source

 

[Dark_Ansem]

I cant believe they had the time for this, dont they have far more dangerous fan projects to shut down?

 

[chrisrlink]

i find it funny still they employed the fbi to seize that rom site despite trump giving japan the old middle finger with tarrifs cause that increased joycon's price even more no wonder knockoffs are popular (if they work) as i said far cheaper

 

[GloomAndGlow]

Are they planning on suing hundreds of Chinese sellers too?

Why aren't they suing Amazon? When it's torrents or drugs+guns they go after the site used to distribute. Amazon is full of illegal copies of copyrighted stuff.

Post automatically merged: Sep 8, 2025

Are they planning on suing hundreds of Chinese sellers too?

Why aren't they suing Amazon? When it's torrents or drugs+guns they go after the site used to distribute. Amazon is full of illegal copies of copyrighted stuff.

 

[ciaomao]

Why aren't they suing Amazon? When it's torrents or drugs+guns they go after the site used to distribute. Amazon is full of illegal copies of copyrighted stuff.

Post automatically merged: Sep 8, 2025

Why aren't they suing Amazon? When it's torrents or drugs+guns they go after the site used to distribute. Amazon is full of illegal copies of copyrighted stuff.

Because:​

Legal Protections​

Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act​

This U.S. law provides immunity to online platforms from liability for user-generated content. It means that Amazon is not held responsible for the actions of third-party sellers, including the sale of counterfeit goods.

 

[Ferris1000]

Because:​

Legal Protections​

Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act​

This U.S. law provides immunity to online platforms from liability for user-generated content. It means that Amazon is not held responsible for the actions of third-party sellers, including the sale of counterfeit goods.

scAmazon isn’t just a storefront, it’s the warehouse, the shipper, the payment processor, and the customer service desk.

When they fulfill the order, they fulfill the liability.
But good luck getting justice…Because when the government’s biggest cloud customer is also the biggest marketplace for scams, don’t expect justice, expect silence.

 

[SDA]

This time the lawsuit was fair. I would never have bought a single product from this man.

 

[Lostbhoy]

2 million??? Man I've been in the wrong business!

Pssst...... Anyone wanna buy a Con-joy....??

 

[JK_]

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

Ebay is the same way if you're talking about Amazon. Not vidya gaems, but I collect coins. I used to report counterfeit Morgan and Peace silver dollars to ebay all the time and they did nothing about it, ever. I'd argue that's even worse. That's counterfeiting US currency on top of counterfeit merchandise. They don't care as long as they get their cut.

 

[Robert Newbie]

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.

That reminds me, I was low on cash back in the late-2000's and early 2010's, and I bought myself one of the bootleg Wii Remotes. They were easy to spot because these remotes had "Wu" printed on them in place of "Wii." The story ends as you'd expect: It did not work particularly well, and I retired it fairly quickly.

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

Reportedly, he made at least $2 million USD in sales. That's over $9,000, so of course Nintendo noticed.

 

[Vixi]

Shouldn't Nintendo be busy suing the US navy for piracy near Venezuela?

 

[autofire]

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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.



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.

Source

Just to clarify, the perp was arrested in Lawrence, NY, which is in Nassau County.

 

[Marc_LFD]

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

I hate the used GBA market now because it's infested with fakes, so many you'd risk buying a fake and them returning it.

 

[Maq47]

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.

My Joy-Cons are realistic knockoffs as well, but mine have no such issues. They were so cheap only because they don't support Amiibos (65% of the cost of the Joy-Cons is the advanced NFC reader/writer inside), but they somehow work better than official Joy-Cons, with zero drift whatsoever even after having them for a year and using them quite often.

 

[Maximumbeans]

'Man caught selling burning bibles in Alabama'.

 

[Gedi223]

A win for Nintendo. A win for Amazon (I doubt they'll turn over their cut from his sales).

The main loser is going to be the consumer who bought the fakes. I doubt Amazon is going to step up and inform them the items they bought were counterfeit and offer to refund the purchase.

 

[Earthshine]

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

Ummmm. No. If your "official" joy-cons are like that, then you definitely bought knock-offs.

 

[Osha]

How hard do you have to mess up to be accused of "conspiracy", damn. That's what gets me here.

 

[alexenochs]

My Joy-Cons are realistic knockoffs as well, but mine have no such issues. They were so cheap only because they don't support Amiibos (65% of the cost of the Joy-Cons is the advanced NFC reader/writer inside), but they somehow work better than official Joy-Cons, with zero drift whatsoever even after having them for a year and using them quite often.

I have bought a ton of the knock offs and confirm they are basically 1:1 [
Outside of joycon support and hd rumble and battery life (they have standard rumble and the batteries are less capacity ..also its a hit or miss in my experience if the motion controls work properly the switch pro controllers also have really good copies that are Pennies compared to the price of the real one

 

[AlamosIT]

 

[Maximo101]

The real question is Why did Amazon allow this to go on for sooo long when they CLEARLY had evidence it was illegal. I'll bet there are over 10,000 Amazon and Ebay accounts that sell counterfeit items into the USA, BASED in the USA.

Nintendo needs to sue AMAZON... It would be like Godzilla vs King Kong.