National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center (IPRC) Automotive Anti-Counterfeiting Council (A2C2)

AS PREPARED FOR DELIVERY

Good morning, everyone. 

Thank you for that warm introduction. It’s great to be with you today.  

I want to begin by thanking A2C2 leadership for putting together this forum. Your dedication to protecting consumer safety, raising awareness of safety issues, and purging dangerous counterfeit products from the marketplace is essential. I also want to extend our heartfelt gratitude to our hosts today at the National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center. The IPRC stands as the focal point for federal trade enforcement, bringing interagency power together under one roof. We deeply value our ongoing partnerships with the IPRC, as well as our federal partners. 

Looking around this room, I am struck by the breadth of leadership assembled today. We have brand protection and engineering personnel from major auto OEMs; crucial tier-one suppliers who build the foundation of modern vehicle safety; federal law enforcement agents on the front lines of criminal investigations; and representatives from the world’s largest e-commerce and online retail platforms. 

Every group represented in this room holds a critical piece of the puzzle. Whether you design and build vehicles, develop and manufacture constituent components, enforce trade laws, or host digital storefronts where millions of Americans shop every day, you are here because you understand a fundamental truth: counterfeit automotive parts do not merely constitute intellectual property violations and financial parasites—they can pose a direct, physical threat to human life. 

As the nation’s motor vehicle and equipment safety regulator, NHTSA operates under the authority of the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act to protect the public against unreasonable risks of a crash, injury, or death on our roads. At the front line of this mission is NHTSA’s Office of Defects Investigation, or ODI. 

ODI is responsible for screening consumer complaints, analyzing real-world data, and conducting investigations into potential safety-related defects across motor vehicles and aftermarket equipment. Supported by NHTSA’s enforcement authorities to compel records, and issue formal defect determinations, ODI plays an indispensable role in providing safety assurance. 

Building on these safeguards, NHTSA recently took extraordinary action on counterfeit parts that pose  a serious threat on American roads: Chinese air bag inflators marked with the identifier "DTN60DB." These inflators pose a direct, lethal risk. Rather than inflating the air bag in a crash to protect the driver from injury, these dangerous components violently explode upon deployment, propelling sharp metal fragments into the cabin—into drivers’ chests, necks, eyes, and faces. Tragically, this exact failure mode has already been tied to eleven deaths and multiple severe, life-altering injuries across the country in crashes that should have been completely survivable. 

While there’s a Chinese air bag inflator manufacturer called DTN, they deny that they made these parts. Regardless, for the first time in over twenty years, NHTSA exercised its statutory authority to issue a formal Final Decision and equipment ban against an aftermarket component. 

What makes this danger particularly insidious—and remarkably challenging to address through traditional regulatory means—is that these units were never installed as original factory equipment by vehicle manufacturers, or sold through normal commerce channels as replacement equipment–where we have the ability to oversee recalls in the ordinary course under the Vehicle Safety Act. Instead, they were illegally imported into the United States and distributed through unverified, unauthorized aftermarket channels. They are installed during post-collision repairs, salvage rebuilds, or as cheap replacements for stolen air bag modules. 

In a standard vehicle recall, automakers maintain detailed production records linking specific vehicle identification numbers to component serial numbers, and suppliers know where their equipment is sent. But in this case, because these rogue parts were distributed through underground supply chains and informal repair networks, there is no master database linking these inflators to specific vehicles, or even shops. Traditional VIN-based recall searches or evaluation of supplier records simply cannot identify end  users. 

To confront this complex challenge, NHTSA has deployed a four-pronged strategy: 

First, we are working with our federal partners such as Homeland Security Investigations, Customs and Border Protection, and the USDOT’s Inspector General, to stop these dangerous inflators at our borders. This effort has resulted in the discovery of smuggling tactics where illicit air bag components were concealed inside everyday cargo, including toys and dollhouses, to bypass customs scrutiny. By coordinating directly with border control authorities, our goal is to help choke off these illegal supply routes before these products ever enter the country. 

Second, we are pursuing the bad actors who sell and install these deadly devices. Working alongside our law enforcement partners, we are assisting in the investigation and prosecution of individuals involved in importing or distributing counterfeit automotive equipment. Importing or selling these defective devices is now illegal under federal law, and anyone engaging in these practices could face serious legal consequences. 

Third, we are aggressively working with e-commerce platforms, online marketplaces, and the salvage yard industry to eliminate sales channels. NHTSA investigators have actively traced seller listings on major online platforms, requesting account details to identify distributors and reverse-engineer the distribution pipeline. We were delighted when Facebook Marketplace, Amazon, Alibaba, and more recently Ebay stopped selling air bag inflators and modules on their platforms. 

Fourth, we are conducting a nationwide public education campaign to inform used-car buyers, mechanics, and body shops.This has included industry and consumer alerts, a webpage, media interviews, and communications through the automotive trade associations. And to help recent used car purchasers determine whether their vehicle had an air bag replacement, CarFax has provided a VIN lookup tool on their website. 

Yet, while air bags have rightfully been the focus of public attention, the danger extends beyond a single component. Today’s automobiles are remarkably complex, highly integrated systems where every individual part is engineered to function in harmony with the rest of the vehicle. When knockoff or unvetted parts enter that ecosystem, they can create unpredictable and sometimes catastrophic safety hazards. 

We are concerned about all counterfeit parts that have potential safety consequences. This is especially true for those originating outside the United States that flood online marketplaces at artificially low prices. While we encourage a safe supply of aftermarket parts that are subject to our enforcement authority to enable affordable repair and maintenance, critical safety components selling online for a fraction of their normal value should be a red flag that a product is not a legitimate, safety-tested component. 

Simply put, we do not know how many of these potentially dangerous and untested parts are currently installed in American vehicles, nor can we predict all the ways they might fail when a family relies on them. For every DTN inflator that makes headlines due to a fatal rupture, how many other substandard, unvetted imported parts don’t perform in an expected manner–think delayed air bag inflator actuation–or threaten to compromise braking performance, steering control, or structural integrity in a critical moment? 

Government regulation and law enforcement alone cannot solve a problem embedded in global digital commerce. That is why having OEM brand protection teams, law enforcement, and online retailers working together is so essential. 

We are issuing an urgent call to action across the automotive and technology sectors. We challenge online vendors, e-commerce platforms, collision repair networks, and automotive industry groups to join forces in collaboration.  

We must combine technical oversight, platform monitoring, image-recognition algorithms, and supply-chain scrutiny to track down, remove, and eradicate dangerous counterfeit components from every online storefront and distribution network in the nation. 

To every used-car buyer, vehicle owner, and independent repair facility: vigilance is critical. If you own or are purchasing a used vehicle that was involved in a crash where an air bag deployed—or if it underwent major repairs outside a reputable dealership or repair facility—you should obtain a vehicle history report and have the air bag assembly inspected by a qualified mechanic. If an inspection reveals a DTN60DB inflator, the vehicle should not be driven until it is replaced with genuine parts. Suspect parts can and should be reported directly to NHTSA’s Vehicle Safety Hotline or federal law enforcement authorities. 

NHTSA remains fully committed to using every tool, authority, and partnership at our disposal to eliminate dangerous counterfeit parts. Together—combining NHTSA’s enforcement authority, the investigative power of the IPRC and federal law enforcement, the technical expertise of automakers and suppliers, and the digital reach of online marketplaces— we can restore integrity to the supply chain and protect American drivers. 

Thank you, and I look forward to our continued work together.