US Customs and Border Protection in Chicago shows off seized drugs, guns, counterfeit products

CHICAGO (WLS) -- The U.S. Customs and Border Protection port in Chicago has been busy this year. They inspect tens of thousands of packages arriving to the United States every day to ensure that those international deliveries are safe and legit.

"Customs and Border Protection is here to protect the consumers, to protect the general public, to protect the American people," Chief Customs & Border Protection Officer Nadia Varela said.

And that's a good thing, because from Oct. 2021 to Oct. 2022, officers in Chicago seized 8,174 pounds of narcotics and $23 million dollars' worth of counterfeit merchandise. That includes everything from fake designer watches, belts, socks, hats, purses and jewelry, purporting to be from luxury brands like Chanel, Louis Vuitton, Gucci and Balenciaga.

They also confiscate dangerous items, like guns.

"Weapon and weapon parts, auto seers that can use to switch Glocks into automatics," Varela said.

And drugs... lots of drugs. On Tuesday morning, K-9 units found 25 grams of cocaine coming from the Netherlands.

"Most of the narcotics seizures are still rather interesting in the methods that they take to try to conceal it," Customs & Border Protection supervisor Robert Evelyn said.

Bad actors are using creative methods, like hiding drugs in children's toys.

"When you order something from overseas, you don't know who manufactured it, you don't know how they manufactured it, what particles or chemicals were used to manufacture," Varela said. "Then there's the economic impacts, where the actual legitimate companies producing these items are losing out on revenue, employees who work for those companies are losing out on pay."

Homeland Security says the combined economic impact after seizing all these items nationwide is estimated between $500 to 600 billion a year.

"Counterfeit goods hurt the economy, counterfeit medicine can hurt your family, counterfeit toys are going to hurt your child," Evelyn said.

With these threats to your community, your business, and your family, the local CBP is essential in protecting people's health and safety, legitimate businesses, and the global supply chain.

"We're using all of our intelligence tools, all our resources to come together and stop it," Varela said.