A New Baltimore man received one year of probation after pleading guilty in a counterfeit automotive parts case filed by the Michigan Attorney General’s Office.
Dinas Kamaitis on Tuesday, Nov. 18, learned his sentence of probation and one day in the Macomb County Jail, with credit for one day served, from Macomb County Circuit Judge Julie Gatti, according to online circuit court records.
They indicate Kamaitis is to maintain employment for 30 hours a week, with the court preapproving travel for work purposes, and he is to have no contact with General Motors or Stellantis.
Kamaitis’ attorney did not respond immediately with comment Wednesday, Nov. 19.
Kamaitis pleaded guilty in September to one count of using computers to commit a crime. The judge dismissed eight other charges — four counts each of counterfeiting-delivery/possession of property and knowingly selling counterfeit, nonfunctional or noncompliant supplemental restraint systems — at sentencing, according to court records.
Records previously indicated Kamaitis owed $20,000 in restitution and will forfeit $65,000.
Kamaitis was 31 in a Free Press article in May about the increasing circulation of counterfeit automotive parts being a concern for federal officials and automakers as well as a safety risk.
A warrant charged him with offering to deliver, display, advertise or possess with intent to deliver counterfeit parts from a half-dozen automakers. The counterfeit items listed in the warrant were: Stellantis grilles, bumpers and logos; Chevrolet and Ford bumpers, and GM, Honda, Subaru and Chevrolet air bags bearing or identified by a counterfeit mark.
Attorney General’s spokesman Danny Wimmer in April declined to say how many counterfeit items Kamaitis was suspected of selling, to whom and for how long, where Kamaitis got the items and how much he charged.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection seized more than 211,000 counterfeit automotive parts in fiscal 2024, nearly doubling the number of counterfeit parts seized the previous year.
That included more than 490 counterfeit air bags — more than 10 times the number of such devices seized in fiscal 2023, according to a September 2024 release from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. At that time, it said Homeland Security had about 40 open investigations into counterfeit automotive parts.
In fiscal year 2023, the ICE release said, federal authorities seized about 20,000 shipments containing goods that violated intellectual property rights, equating to nearly 23 million counterfeit items — worth more than $2.75 billion had they been genuine parts. Out of those shipments, almost 100,000 items were counterfeit automotive goods with a manufacturer’s suggested retail price of more than $10 million.
Contact Christina Hall: chall@freepress.com. Follow her on X: @challreporter.
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This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Macomb County man sentenced to probation in counterfeit auto parts case
Reporting by Christina Hall, Detroit Free Press / Detroit Free Press
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