"focused on criminal activity relating to selling counterfeit goods."
"Do you understand what these people are doing to the mothers and fathers of this country, to the kids?"
"Everybody they arrested has the chance of having a whole family behind them, and they're ripping it apart."
A stretch of Canal Street in Manhattan's Chinatown was largely desolate after a federal raid and multiple arrests disrupted a decades-old informal market. The market normally features dozens of immigrant street vendors, many West African, selling assorted merchandise including knockoff designer goods. U.S. Homeland Security officials said nine West African immigrants were arrested in an operation focused on counterfeit sales. Four others were arrested for allegedly assaulting a federal officer and one for allegedly obstructing law enforcement. DHS said those arrested had prior arrests on charges including counterfeiting, robbery, burglary, domestic violence, assaulting law enforcement and drug possession. City officials said the NYPD did not participate. One arrested vendor, Aboubakar Diakite, is a Mauritanian who sold phone cases and has lived in the United States for more than 20 years.
Read at Gothamist
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