The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act was originally passed in 1970 to illiminate the ill effects brought about by organized crime.
Since the 1980’s, however, civil lawyers have taken advantage of section 1964(c) of the RICO Act, which allows civil claims to be brought by any person injured in their business or property by reason of a RICO violation.

Is eBay, by making so much of its income by selling known counterfeit and/or stolen goods, in fact a criminal conspiracy under the terms of the RICO act?

Scott Augenbaum, supervisory special agent for the FBI Cybercrime Fraud unit in Washington, D.C. is adament on the subject “The vast majority (of conterfeit IT products in circulation) is still being purchased from gray market, uncertified resellers that unload their goods on eBay at extremely low prices,”

       Counterfeit products account for nearly 10% of the overall IT products market.

Counterfeit Cisco equipment, known in the industry as “Chisco” (counterfeit Cisco equipment originating in China) are being created at an alarming rate. According to a white paper by AGMA and consulting company KPMG, counterfeit products account for nearly 10% of the overall IT products market. That’s $100 billion in fake memory sticks, drives, monitors, networking gear and other IT products in circulation.

China’s policies concerning intellectual property infringement and state-sanctioned piracy have become a growing global concern. Tremendous growth of the network hardware secondary market, as well as an upturn in Chinese manufacturing have combined to push these fears to new heights. The ease at which counterfeits can be sold on eBay may be helping to encourage growth in a market that eBay is certainly making money from. A question which must be asked is how much of these profits are being redirected to help fight this growing internet phenomenon?

As a result, network managers are often avoiding pre-owned hardware from eBay simply because it is too difficult to identify counterfeit equipment. Unless products can be checked by a third party, counterfeit fraud on eBay will continue. An alternative for network managers wanting to save money and have the confidence to buy used or pre-nwed is to buy off of trading portal where products are checked and tested by professionals who can attest to them being genuine. At trade 2 save, consumers will be able to buy sell or trade their computers, cameras, cell phones, games and movies. When they sell them to trade 2 save, every product they buy is tested and give a one year warranty before being sold on. Spotting counterfeits at trade 2 save will be a top priority in procedure and training.

One of the worst offenders on the eBay site, the computer software category is unfortunately littered with counterfeit and pirated goods. Electronic entertainment media of all kinds is commonly sold illegally on eBay, whether in the form of pirated/unlicensed copies, or in the form of import or export-restricted goods.

In Wisconsin 6 defendants were sentenced in April for selling a combined total of more than $25,000,000 worth of counterfeit computer software on eBay.
eBay may well have profited substantially from these transactions and we have not been able to ascertain whether or not eBay has returned these fund to either law enforcement agencies or the many thousands of eBay buyers who were defrauded in good faith.