Federal agents seized about $900,000 in cash from the home of a 43-year-old New York woman accused of supplying a counterfeit watch network linked to a Waterbury, Connecticut residence, according to prosecutors. Si Man Lam was arrested on August 26 and now faces charges of counterfeit trafficking, conspiracy, and money laundering conspiracy in connection with a scheme investigators say moved fake Rolex, Audemars and Panerai watches worth more than $16 million in authentic suggested retail value.
According to Daily Voice, investigators identified Lam as the person who shipped watches sold through Instagram accounts tied to the ring, and say she continued selling and shipping fake watches until around May 2026. Lam has said she worked as a home health aide and denied knowledge of the counterfeit operation, though the case centers on a Waterbury home linked to Izedin Kimca and his alleged aliases. The complaint against her contains allegations, not proof, and Lam is presumed innocent unless proven guilty.
Federal agents questioned Lam on April 5, 2024, at John F. Kennedy International Airport as she returned from Hong Kong, per the same report. She was not arrested at that time. Authorities allege that between February and June 2021, federal customs officers intercepted seven international shipments addressed to Lam's New York residences containing about 378 counterfeit luxury watches, which would have carried suggested retail prices totaling roughly $6.4 million had they been genuine, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
Money Trail Points to Freight Forwarders and Co-Conspirators
Investigators say accounts linked to Lam show payments of more than $2.7 million to freight-forwarding companies between December 2020 and October 2025, the report notes. Separately, accounts connected to Kimca, Denis Nako and Klevis Nako allegedly transferred more than $800,000 to Lam between January 2021 and April 2024, with sales proceeds traced to accounts connected to all three men. Undercover investigators bought counterfeit Rolex watches from several Instagram accounts tied to the network for about $200 to $300 each, and agents say Lam shipped watches purchased by those undercover buyers.
The case against Lam builds on an investigation that first became public in April 2024, when authorities arrested Kimca and brothers Denis and Klevis Nako on federal criminal complaints. Homeland Security Investigations agents had interviewed Kimca as early as January 2023 and explicitly warned him that selling counterfeit watches was illegal, following multiple seizure notices from U.S. Customs and Border Protection, according to The 016. Kimca allegedly kept selling counterfeit timepieces through social media despite those warnings, promoting the fake watches through websites and social media alongside the Nako brothers.
Worcester and Waterbury Addresses Flagged for Years
Customs officials intercepted 22 international parcels addressed to the Nako brothers' Worcester, Massachusetts residence between February 2021 and April 2022, containing counterfeit Rolex and Cartier watches with an estimated authentic value exceeding $3 million, per the Justice Department. U.S. Customs and Border Protection separately intercepted about 74 parcels sent to the Waterbury home between April 2020 and July 2022, and authorities also stopped shipments headed to Worcester and to Lam's New York homes as part of the broader crackdown.
Court documents reviewed by PacerMonitor show Kimca registered the domain watchoholics.co in November 2022, using it alongside Instagram handles including watch.fleunt, watchfluent.eu and watch.oholics to solicit buyers for counterfeit timepieces imported from China. Kimca and Denis Nako have both pleaded guilty to related federal charges and, as of this month, await sentencing in Connecticut federal court. Klevis Nako, a former Framingham State University police officer, was sentenced in January 2025 to 60 days in federal prison, 18 months of supervised release, and ordered to forfeit $271,585 in proceeds, after pleading guilty in August 2024 to conspiracy to traffic in counterfeit goods.
Multi-Agency Task Force Behind the Case
The investigation was carried out by a joint task force including Homeland Security Investigations New England, IRS Criminal Investigation, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service Boston Division, and U.S. Customs and Border Protection, with federal prosecutors in the District of Connecticut leading the prosecution. The charges Lam faces carry maximum prison terms ranging from 10 to 20 years, reflecting statutory penalties under counterfeit trafficking and money laundering conspiracy statutes.
The case echoes a separate Connecticut intellectual property prosecution in April 2026, when a New Britain couple was sentenced in Hartford federal court after agents seized nearly 2,000 counterfeit luxury items, including clothing, handbags and jewelry imported from China and Thailand, according to the Justice Department. Nationally, U.S. Customs and Border Protection reported seizing nearly 79 million counterfeit items in fiscal year 2025 valued at more than $7.3 billion, noting that over 90% of such seizures occur in international mail and express consignment channels driven by e-commerce growth. It remains unclear whether additional suppliers in China or freight-forwarding intermediaries will face indictment in connection with the Waterbury-linked network.
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