Lincolnshire police charge man with selling counterfeit phones

A Northbrook man is free on bond after being charged with selling refurbished and counterfeit phones as new Motorola phones over the Internet, Lincolnshire police said.

Maxim Bolotin, 25, of the 2800 block of Woodland Drive, was charged Thursday with felony counts of unauthorized possession of goods with a counterfeit mark and unauthorized use of a trademark name.

Bolotin was also charged with unlawful possession of cannabis during his arrest.

He was taken to Lake County jail Thursday but was freed after posting 10 percent of his $500,000 bail Friday afternoon, Investigator John-Erik Anderson said.

Police were contacted by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement in November 2010 about Bolotin and his company operating a counterfeit phone refurbishing shop in Lincolnshire, Anderson said.

Bolotin was accused of advertising the sale of new Motorola cellular phones on the Internet, but the phones were actually refurbished and contained counterfeit parts, Anderson said.

Bolotin had several company names at the time, including Maximum Communications, Maxim Cellular and United Distributors, Anderson said.

Motorola performed its own investigation into Bolotin in 2010, purchased numerous phones and discovered the counterfeit parts were used in the cellular phones, Anderson said.

Lincolnshire police and ICE agents executed a search warrant on the operation and uncovered $250,000 worth of counterfeit phone parts in 2010, he said. However, legal snafus and delays involving federal and state laws resulted in Bolotin not being charged.

Anderson said those legal issues were ironed out Thursday and an arrest warrant was obtained for Bolotin.

“We went to Glenview and picked him up where he was operating under Maximum Communications and still selling what we think are counterfeit phones on eBay,” he said. “He reduced the scale of his operation from the one here, but he was using one of his older company names and still selling phones on the Internet.”

Anderson said the items confiscated during the warrant arrest Thursday will be examined by Motorola to determine if they are counterfeits. If so, more charges will be filed, he added.

Anyone who may have purchased a phone from Maximum Communications, Maxim Cellular or United Distributors is asked to call the Lincolnshire Police Department at (847) 883-9900.

Anderson said the case remains under investigation and more charges could be added.