Steve Neavling

Federal law enforcement authorities seized 132 domain names worldwide because they were selling counterfeit merchandise online, the Associated Press reports.

The Cyber Monday crackdown, which comes during the heaviest online shopping day, was the third annual effort to target knockoff clothes, DVDs and other goods.

Authorities seized the sites after confirming authenticity of products through the copyright holders, the AP wrote.

Sites that were busted now show a banner explaining the seizure, according to the AP.

Steve Neavling

 Gene Carlo Pena fooled no one when he stuffed two ATMs in midtown Manhattan with poorly designed counterfeit bills, NBC 4 New York reports.

The 26-year-old man was working for a company that services ATMs when he replaced $11,000 with amateurish fake bills, NBC 4 reported.

The bills were blank on one side, and the machines were able to detect them, the bank said.

Pena was arrested Monday after voluntarily returning from the Dominican Republican on embezzlement charges, according to NBC 4.

authentic Polo Black

Apparently the feds wanted to make a big stink out this case.

Two men from China — Shaoxiong Zhou, 42, and Shaoxia Huang, 33 — have pleaded guilty U.S. District Court in Brooklyn — to trafficking in counterfeit perfume. Zhou pleaded guilty Friday. His co-defendant pleaded on Aug. 3.

Authorities said the two admitted offering to supply counterfeit perfume to prospective buyers at a Las Vegas trade show in August 2010. The counterfeit perfume included the brands Lacoste, Polo Black and Armani Code.

Authorities said ultimately a cargo shipment containing counterfeit perfumes was purchased and shipped to the United States in 2011 and was seized by U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents upon arrival.

The buck apparently stopped with 67-year-old Bernard von NotHaus.

Von NotHaus, who was part of an anti-government movement, was convicted last week in federal court in North Carolina of minting roughly $7 million in Liberty Dollar coins, authorities said.

Authorities said investigators found that he had been making and disseminating the coins since 1998.

Von NotHaus was founder of an organization called the National Organization for the Repeal of the Federal Reserve and Internal Revenue Code, commonly known as NORFED and also known as Liberty Services.

Authorities said Von NotHaus designed the Liberty Dollar currency that were marked with the dollar sign ($); the words dollar, USA, Liberty, Trust in God (instead of In God We Trust); and other features associated with legitimate coins.

In 2006, the Department of Justice and U.S. Mint issued a press release saying the Liberty Dollar was “not legal tender.

“Attempts to undermine the legitimate currency of this country are simply a unique form of domestic terrorism,” U.S. Attorney Tompkins said in a statement following last week’s verdict.

“While these forms of anti-government activities do not involve violence, they are every bit as insidious and represent a clear and present danger to the economic stability of this country,” she added. “We are determined to meet these threats through infiltration, disruption, and dismantling of organizations which seek to challenge the legitimacy of our democratic form of government.”