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MONROE — Police seized between 800 and 900 counterfeit items worth an estimated $9,000 to $10,000 during a flea market raid.

Monroe police and the Warren County Prosecutor's Office will be meeting this week to determine what charges to pursue against vendors whose counterfeit merchandise was seized during the Saturday, May 10, raid of 22 booths at Trader's World off the Interstate 75 and Ohio 63 interchange.

"We're going to get together and sit down and go over the cases individually. We had some people admit that they were selling counterfeit goods, we're trying to identify who fled and we have other people who we are looking at what charges we're going to go with them in," said Monroe police Lt. Brian Curlis.

The investigation is continuing, and no charges have been filed, Curlis said; however, he added that all of the vendors are likely facing charges for knowingly selling or possessing counterfeit goods in violation of the Trademark Counterfeiting Act, Curlis said.

"Everyone we got Saturday, that stayed with their booth and didn't run off were identified, had identification on them where we can prove what they were doing as well, that's why we didn't arrest anybody," he said.

"We were trying to get as much accomplished as we could in reference to seizing all the property, identify those individuals and see if they want to talk to us."

Curlis said some of the merchants are illegal immigrants who were afraid of the police so they fled, abandoning their booths.

The raid was initiated after the department received complaints from private investigators of Bruce Kingsland & Associates, on behalf of manufacturers of Chanel, Prada and Louis Vuitton products about knockoffs being sold at the flea market.

The investigation company reported to police they were able to buy phony items at the Monroe flea market. Curlis said the items seized were confirmed to be counterfeit.

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