The First Family of Counterfeit Hunting

Robert Holmes taught his sons everything he knew about exposing black-market knockoffs. Now they take down the world's biggest scammers while dodging threats from the mob.

Before I came across Rob and Jason Holmes, I'd not given counterfeit goods much thought. (I mean, who has?) But delving into the mysterious world of cybersecurity and subterfuge was fascinating, and the brothers' enthusiasm and passion for their work contagious. After this Narratively Classic ran in June 2018, Rob was interviewed by the BBC, and there has been interest in developing it as a television series. I hope it gets made one day! it's a great story with colorful characters and I am thrilled to have helped bring it to life.

—Amy Ridout

The flower arrangement was large and gaudy. “Sorry for your loss,” read the note accompanying the blooms. Rob Holmes squinted in surprise at the sender’s name: Ray West. Ray West didn’t exist. He was one of the online personas Rob adopted to hunt counterfeiters. And Rob hadn’t lost anyone. The note was a threat.

It was 2009 and the Russian mob had Rob in their sights. The company he runs with his younger brother Jason was on the trail of a huge counterfeit operation, an investigation that would eventually lead to the downfall of a Russian “spam gang,” a sophisticated group of mobsters responsible for a slew of websites advertising fake watches, handbags and accessories, as well as a third of the world’s spam emails. 

The flowers, which Rob later discovered had been bought with his own hacked credit card, were an unmistakable warning. But the investigator was hardly spooked; he appreciated the theater. “It was pretty cool and dramatic,” he recalls, “like something from ‘The Godfather.’”

Rob, his brother, and their team at IPCybercrime spend their days tracking down knockoffs online, feeding the information back to the name-brand companies who employ them – Louis Vuitton, Disney, Tiffany & Co. – to use in their cases against counterfeiters. It’s a 21st-century version of a skill the brothers first learned while working together undercover as children. In the 1980s and ’90s, their father Robert Holmes worked as a private detective and became a legend in the counterfeit business. Growing up, family outings were weekend trips to the Jersey Shore, expeditions that were part shopping, part work.

“Kids make very good undercover distractions,” Rob says. “My father and stepmother would take us to swap meets and boardwalks up and down the Jersey Shore, and instead of having the grown-up make the purchase of the counterfeit Cabbage Patch doll or t-shirt, they would have one of us do it.”