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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[Retrojunkies]

Is this more of nintendo hunting down someone selling "unlicensed" goods, or am actual copyright of selling nintendo owned licenced goods as legit when theyre fake.

Because there's no law in someone making a third party unlicensed nor endorsed product and selling it as compatible with.....

As for pokemon go, id like to see what goods, as again, Datel who profit from making third party unlicensed goods and also sold millions of cheat code products for nintendo consoles, remain unaffected.

So I guess its more of a, big company targeting the little fish to sue for millions of bullshit damages, when its more likely affected third party developers yet nintendo won't give a single penny to them.

Fuck nintendo, this company profits spending as little but sue for bucket loads.

 

[BlusterBong]

Dumbass does scamming, ends up getting caught and rightfully beaten, people crying crocodile tears in response, news at 11.

Like dude... there's like hundreds of thousands of fools trying to make counterfeit goods selling them off as the real thing, why did you think that bootlegs trying to ape off popular IPs used to be really big in the pre-N64 and Pre-PSP/NDS handheld days where you couldn't go to a flea market without tripping on a bunch of bootlegs?

 

[Ferris1000]

scAmazon doesn’t care if counterfeits are sold as originals.
Just look at the fake 1TB Sony microSD cards flooding their listings, cards that don’t even exist. The layout is a blatant Sandisk ripoff, and the actual capacity is barely 4GB.
And it’s not just Sony. There are countless fake microSD cards from every brand imaginable. If you don’t know exactly what to look for, it’s nearly impossible to find a genuine one.

And it doesn’t stop there, unsafe electrical fuses are being sold too. These things don’t trigger at their rated current; they behave like aluminum foil, putting your devices and safety at serious risk.

I got scammed back in 2016 with a fake 128GB Sandisk card.
The seller even tried to bribe me with a €5 refund to change my negative review.
I declined and reported it. What did scAmazon do? Nothing. The product stayed online.

The seller stayed online. And when you call them out, they hide behind legal jargon: ‘We’re not the seller, so we don’t control the product or know if it’s authentic.’
But they store it, ship it, and profit from it. They know exactly what’s going on, and they let it happen because scams make them money.”

 

[danman78]

Good he got caught. Hope he goes away for a long time.

 

[chrisrlink]

the real crime here is nintendo uping the prices of 8 year old hardware and blaming the Potus for doing it world wide thats the real scam if anything they should have tageted the USA only for the price increase but their greedy af (and i'm even saying this as an american)

 

[SeventhSon7]

now clean up ebay

someday I'd like to buy authentic GBA carts again

 

[HarveyHouston]

I wouldn't want a counterfeit item anyways; I'm actually siding with Nintendo on this one. Most counterfeit items are poorly-made, rushed products designed for the seller to make a quick buck.

 

[ELY_M]

I want to know what was his ASINS? what he was selling on Amazon? Do anyone have copies of his listings?

Post automatically merged: Sep 9, 2025

what about the 3rd party joycons with d-pads? I have hard time finding those joycons. I was so pissed off about Amazon yanking those listings.

I really hate those Real Nintendo branded joycons. they are TRASH!!!!!!

 

[chrisrlink]

I wouldn't want a counterfeit item anyways; I'm actually siding with Nintendo on this one. Most counterfeit items are poorly-made, rushed products designed for the seller to make a quick buck.

then tell nintendo also to stop skimping on joysticks,and use hall effect better product= less likely to choose counterfet (on purpose) to save $50

 

[BlusterBong]

then tell nintendo also to stop skimping on joysticks,and use hall effect better product= less likely to choose counterfet (on purpose) to save $50

Or you can just buy any ol' PowerA/8BitDo/etc. controller if you're that desparate for hall effect, it's not even that hard to pair with a Switch or Switch 2, or anything else nowadays.

 

[HarveyHouston]

then tell nintendo also to stop skimping on joysticks,and use hall effect better product= less likely to choose counterfet (on purpose) to save $50

That'll be the day...

 

[mspy]

I bet some of this counterfeiting stuff come from the same factories of the official stuff.