Combating the Spread of Counterfeit PPE
L
ike COVID-19 itself, counterfeit personal protective equipment (PPE) has spread throughout the country. Since the pandemic began, state officials have seized counterfeit N95 masks as they entered the country, while some masks were seized as they were on the brink of being distributed to hospital workers and others were recalled right out of the hands of nurses. But it isn’t enough to know how to spot the counterfeit masks once they arrive at the doorsteps of hospitals, and a multidisciplinary team has formed at Mason to disrupt the illicit supply chain of counterfeit PPE by identifying the source of counterfeiting respirators and how they enter legitimate supply chains. Edward Huang from the College of Engineering and Computing and Louise Shelley from the Schar School of Policy and Government received a $1 million grant from the National Science Foundation to combine their expertise and analyze the supply chain for counterfeit goods coming into the United States.
The researchers will also examine the transportation of the counterfeit goods. “We are looking at the transportation systems where counterfeit goods enter legitimate supply chains, like airports or seaports,” says Huang. Fully understanding the path illicit goods take to get into the country allows the researchers to move onto the next step, constructing descriptions of the supply chain that can help find ways to disrupt counterfeit goods from entering it. “[With] this kind of criminal activity, if we analyze the people behind it and their overall supply chain, we can find patterns,” says Huang. Huang and Shelley’s work combines artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, data mining, sociological analysis, policy, and more to find patterns that can be disrupted in the supply chain. “As engineers, we have the ability to use these tools, like data mining, to do great work, but we have to know which questions to ask,” says Huang.
Already, the team has noticed that some counterfeiters are involved in two or three types of illicit activity. “We noticed some of these criminals switched to counterfeit PPE last year because of the pandemic,” says Huang. As engineers, we have the ability to use these tools, And it is knowledge like this that helps like data mining, to do great work, but we have to them understand illicit supply chains long term.
know which questions to ask.
—Edward Huang, associate professor, Systems Engineering and Operations Research The first piece of their three-part project is understanding how the illicit supply chains work. The research team will use data and cybersecurity measures to learn how payments are processed, how the counterfeiters are hosting their websites, and how they communicate. “They need to find customers, and the internet is their best way to do that,” says Huang.
Along with their analysis, the research team will eventually study strategies that government and corporate stakeholders can take to disrupt the chain before it reaches our shores.
“Counterfeit masks are nearly everywhere during the pandemic. 3M reported more than 38 million counterfeit respirators since March 2020,” says Huang. The hope is that Mason’s multidisciplinary team will help halt the spread of counterfeit PPE altogether. —Ryley McGinnis
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