Could your latest perfume purchase have the scent of fraudulence? New York City’s first criminal counterfeiting case involving fragrances has just made it a very real possibility.

New York City Police Department (NYPD) operatives recently swooped down on a store called Price Right Perfume and Watches, located at 1205 Broadway in Manhattan and arrested six foreign nationals, charging them with trademark counterfeiting.

During the raid, police found more than 600 bottles of counterfeit fragrances, including fakes labeled Armani, Ralph Lauren, Chanel, Kenneth Cole and Liz Claiborne. Total retail value - $36,000. According to a WWD (Women's Wear Daily) report, an unidentified source estimated that the store’s inventory had a retail value of almost $3 million, although it has not been determined which portion of this is counterfeit.

More arrests are expected in what some say is New York City’s first criminal counterfeit case involving fake fragrances. A law blog that tackled this issue quoted Martin Ficke, former Department of Homeland Security special agent and now a private consultant, as saying that although this type of arrests involves civil litigation, this case could be tried as a criminal matter. And because the government does not have a lot of resources to deal with anti-counterfeiting crime, Ficke, the Fragrance Foundation and some leading fragrance companies (who initiated the investigations that sparked the raid), together with the NYPD, are stepping up to the plate to build a criminal case against the suspected counterfeiters.

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Now, the case has brought to light two critical issues: First, according to various law blogs, there is the urgent need to determine how the counterfeit fragrances were brought into the US (from what many presume are the counterfeiters' countries, China and Dubai). This is urgent because the issue affects the fashion and apparel industry as well – plagued as they are, too, with the onslaught of counterfeit goods.

Second, and just as critical, is a significant public health issue - the health risk posed by a product directly applied to the skin, whose counterfeit versions have been determined to include additives such as urine and antifreeze.

Industry insiders are hoping that the recent arrests will garner greater law enforcement interest and bring in more resources to help put an end to counterfeiting in the fragrance and other industries.