ATLANTA (AP) — A German company that smuggled realistic-looking police badges into the U.S. in an online sales operation is now facing criminal charges after an undercover FBI investigation, federal prosecutors said Tuesday.
The company is called Master-Equipment, according to a federal complaint unsealed this week in U.S. District Court in Atlanta. The probe stemmed from the April arrest of a man accused of posing as a federal officer in the Atlanta suburb of Doraville.
“The dismantling of a foreign-based company’s ability to sell counterfeit U.S. law enforcement badges to a U.S. market is critical in the post 9/11 era,” J. Britt Johnson, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Atlanta field office, said in a written statement.
Federal authorities say they shut down one website used by the company, which is based in Kaarst, Germany. However, badges for U.S. Transportation Security Administration officers, Secret Service agents and Federal Air Marshals were still being advertised Tuesday on at least one other site, as well as badges bearing the names and emblems of the New York, Chicago and Los Angeles police departments.
