The call came in late July or early August. A man identifying himself as a federal Homeland Security agent said he needed to talk to Cox at her store.
Cox asked what it was all about.
"He said he was not at liberty to discuss that," she said.
They agreed to meet in early August, but the agent later canceled. Cox thought the matter had blown over when the agent called back Sept. 9 to say he was coming out there.
"I was shaking in my shoes," said Cox, who has owned Pufferbelly Toys for more than four years. "My first thought was the government can shut your business down on a whim, in my opinion. If I'm closed even for a day that would cause undue stress."
The next day, two men arrived at the store and showed Cox their badges. The lead agent asked Cox whether she carried a toy called the Magic Cube. She said yes. The Magic Cube, he said, was an illegal copy of the Rubik's Cube, one of the most popular toys of all time. He told her to remove the Magic Cube from her shelves, and he watched to make sure she complied.
The whole thing took about 10 minutes.
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1. Karen on October 29, 2004 12:02 PM writes...
It might not be quite so Orwellian as it looks at first blush. This story got carried on Slashdot where, to be fair, someone pointed out that Customs is now part of Homeland Security, and that finding counterfeit imports has always been part of Customs' mandate.
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