2 hours ago
2
Canal Street in Chinatown is once again awash in a sea of illegal vendors hawking knock-off designer bags, electronics and jewelry less than a month after ICE dramatically cleared the area and made arrests.
The Post caught dozens of the brazen illicit peddlers on video when they were out in full force — with the holiday season fast approaching — Friday before NYPD cops descended on them, sending the Manhattan scofflaws fleeing.
Then Sunday, fewer than two days later, there were as many as 100 of the rogue sellers back at it pushing counterfeit goods laid out on blankets on the sidewalk between Lafayette and Center streets, some attracting long lines of customers looking to get their hands on an imitation Chanel bag or iPhone.
But while the threat of police and even immigration crackdowns hasn’t been enough to curb the pesky curbside business, a deep paranoia has taken hold among the sellers since last month’s raids.
“They’re paranoid, that’s for sure,” explained a former shoe-hawker named Diango, 56, who says he now acts as a mentor to the younger sellers. “You go in there and tell them immigration is here, and they’ll disappear. Not run, but disappear.”
Still, “they’re not afraid, they’re working to make a life,” he said. “All they’re doing is their work.”
Diango said the illicit trade has become a much harder way to earn a living than when he was at it nearly 20 years ago.
“Before, you could make $1,000 [a day]. That was in 2007 or 2008,”’ the man said.
“It was clean here, it was better qualities,” he added of the merchandise. “Right now, it’s bad-quality stuff.”
Diango said some vendors, many of whom are immigrants from Africa and Asia, might not even earn $100 in a full day now.
“Some say they make $1,000 a day. They lying,” he said.
The vendors’ heightened apprehension was on full display when an NYPD squad car drove by Sunday and fired up its sirens.
In a matter of seconds, more than a dozen men started frantically folding up tables and gathering their wares in bedsheets and plastic bags and on roller carts before scurrying down the sidewalk or into the Canal Street subway.
But the fear-induced break in the action was short-lived, as the men reclaimed their makeshift storefronts within minutes of law enforcement disappearing.
“They come when the cops are not around. You see the cops, and they wait for vendors to get on their spot to catch them,” said a man named Sowmmo, a Canal Street gift-shop worker.
He said last month’s arrests may have made some of the illegal purveyors think twice but that there’s little authorities can do to put them out of business for good.
“There is nothing to do about it. They will be here forever unless it happens over and over again,” he said, referring to the recent Immigration and Customs Enforcement raid.
A Department of Homeland Security rep, asked what ICE plans to do about the rogue vendors especially as the holidays approach, said although the feds “don’t telegraph future operations.”
But street vendors, particularly those in the country illegally, should “stay tuned!” the representative told The Post.
“We have a clear message for all illegal aliens in the country: LEAVE NOW. If you don’t, we will find you, we will arrest you, and you will never return,” the rep said.
“We encourage all illegal aliens to use the [Customs and Border Protection] Home app to get $1,000 and a free flight to go home for the holidays,” they said of the agency’s deal to try to entice immigration scofflaws to leave the US.
Sowmmo said the knock-off sellers can be annoying and mess up his gift shop’s business by standing in front of their goods.
But sidewalk sale shoppers said they don’t see the problem.
“I think it’s really sad,” said Lisa Laurent, 21, a nursing student originally from São Paulo, Brazil, who bought a $60 imitation Gucci bag from one of the illicit vendors, said of October’s ICE raids on the marketplace.
“These people are here working, they’re not bothering anyone,” she said, pointing out that the city has bigger fish to fry when it comes to crime.
“There’s worse things happening in the city that they can go after rather than people who are just working.
“It really breaks my heart how they’re so aggressive,” she said of ICE. “They make people live with such fear.”
Some of the arrests made during last month’s crackdown involved people protesting ICE’s involvement.
English (US)