Approximately 2,500 counterfeit air bags were imported between May 2022 and April 2024 with markings of Honda, Chevrolet, General Motors, and Toyota
New Bern, N.C.—A federal judge recently sentenced a Raleigh, N.C., man to one year and a day for importing and selling thousands of counterfeit car airbags into the Raleigh area over the past two years.
The defendant, Mateen Mohammad Alinaghian, 31, sold the counterfeit airbags locally and to online buyers through Facebook Marketplace. The court also ordered Alinaghian to pay restitution in the amount of $83,405.95 to the victims who unknowingly purchased a counterfeit airbag, and to the car manufacturers, and forfeit $154,693.16.
According to court documents and other information presented in court, Alinaghian imported approximately 2,500 counterfeit airbags into Raleigh between May 2022 and April 2024. Alinaghian imported airbags with counterfeit markings of Honda, Chevrolet, General Motors, and Toyota, from a supplier in the United Kingdom.
Alinaghian then sold the counterfeit airbags to unsuspecting customers using the Facebook Marketplace seller profile of “Matt AutoParts” or “Medo Smith” to advertise and sell the counterfeit airbags.
According to testing done by Honda, General Motors, and Toyota, the steering wheel airbags obtained and sold by Alinaghian were not manufactured by the car companies and often included materials of lesser quality. In testing, the counterfeit airbags often malfunctioned, either not fully inflating or worse, inflating late, posing a potentially serious risk of injury to the vehicle driver.
The investigation included a search of Alinaghian’s house, which resulted in the seizure of approximately 20 counterfeit airbags, and multiple seizures by Customs and Border Control of in-bound packages from the United Kingdom containing counterfeit airbags en route to Alinaghian.
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