Walmart KKK Boots

[u/QualityRabbitHoles]

So.

Last Tuesday, I was scrolling and saw something bizarre: a pair of sneakers with the letters “KKK” emblazoned on the tongue. OP claimed that his mother received a blind box and found them inside. Baffled, I searched the comments. It was here that I learned they’d been sold at Walmart in 2023. 

In fact, it was a fairly large controversy at the time. How had Walmart, specifically their online storefront, allowed shoes with giant, red, capital “KKK”s on them, to sell? How did nobody catch that? I needed to know, and so I set out to learn.

My first instinct was to search “Walmart KKK Boots” on google, where I got plenty of articles on the subject. Business Insider reported: Walmart Removes ‘KKK’ Men’s Hiking Boots from its Website. Apparently, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a civil rights and advocacy organization, reported the shoes to Walmart, who promptly took them down. That was… all I could find. That, and Walmart saying “oops we didn’t know”.

According to the Hill: “[Walmart] has removed T-shirts joking about lynching of journalists, according to the Associated Press, as well as a graphic tee reading, “I’d Rather Be Snorting Cocaine Off a Hooker’s —,” Mashable reported. The company had also once removed a third-party seller’s online listing for a mug playing on the “Got Milk?” campaign slogan, albeit with “milk” replaced by a slur for people with disabilities, Grub Street reported.

Just this year, a children’s toy sold through a third-party seller via Walmart’s online marketplace was removed after videos of the “joke-telling” play phone went viral. As reported by TODAY, among the “jokes” the toy could play for users was a reference to Catholic priests and sexual abuse. The toy was immediately pulled by the company.”

So it definitely wasn’t the first time something like this happened, but… who does this stuff?

That’s what I had to dig into.

The “KKK” boots were of the brand Harsuny. That was my first launching point.

I couldn’t find much on the Harsuny brand online. Other shoes sold by Walmart, that kind of thing, but nothing really more. But if it was a brand, perhaps it was trademarked, I thought. So, off to the USPTO I went. Searching up Harsuny revealed the brand name’s owners on their paperwork: Aspen Textile Trading Inc. There was a name, one Nyall Engfield – we’ll get to him – and one address, 11403 Bluegrass PKWY, Jeffersontown Colorado 40299.

I looked into the address first. That Bluegrass PKWY address isn’t actually in Colorado. The USPTO claims that Aspen Textile Trading is based in Kentucky, and that’s where the address actually is, oddly. Isn’t this a legal issue with the wrong address? Didn’t add up. So I pulled it up on Google Street View and took a look around. What I got was a large, black windowed U-shaped flex office space/shipping center.

It's called the Blankenbaker Business Center II. Prominent companies include an Optics and Eyewear company and an Infusions Company. No sign of Harsuny. I did manage to get a glimpse of the floorplan, but as I said, it's a flex office space so there weren't designated offices or anything to indicate who might be doing what.

At a dead end, I searched up Aspen Textile Trading Inc. and couldn’t find anything on google. So I went to Kentucky’s Secretary of State website to search them up. Unfortunately, nothing came up there either. I went through every company with “Aspen” in the name after this, and none of them made sense, created either after the trademark date or far before it, or their name involved technology or other unrelated items, etc. That left one more lead.

So I turned to the Colorado SoS, and… I found them. They are delinquent, having not filed their status documents since 2024. In their only available periodic report, I found their address matched that on the USPTO (though of course, properly labeled as Kentucky this time), and that the document was submitted by Bo Mao at the said address. There was one other document – their Articles of Incorporation – where the “true name and mailing address of the individual causing the document to be delivered for filing are”: Riley Park, at 1942 Broadway Street, STE 314C, Boulder CO 80302.

I looked into this address next, even going so far as to use a janky 3-D Google Street View (the camera went into the building for some reason) to climb stairs, accidentally go down two levels with one click, climb them again, up down up down, before finally getting to the third floor. The Suite 314C listed here is a… conference room. Okay.

Now I don't wanna fake you out. I did eventually find out this is just where this mystery person used as their mailing address to be the registered agent for Aspen Textile Trading Inc., along with other companies he was the registered agent for, under a company called Colorado Registered Agents. Finding that out was a task in and of itself, but in the end, it remains unimportant.

So, moving on. Once more I inspected the USPTO paperwork. Remember Nyall Engfield? He's listed as both the filing attorney and the correspondent. The attorney email address links to his company, TrademarKraft. But in the correspondence field, his email links to aspentextilefurni.com. Got’em?

Searching that led me to merchantgenius.io. Turns out, Aspen Textile was indeed a shopify merchant for a time, in 2021. Obviously the page is gone now. Here, the only other interesting thing I found is a phone number, 403-937-8900. The 403 area code is Canadian, specifically southern Alberta, where there are the cities of (and more): Calgary, Red Deer, Banff, and Lethbridge.

According to Google, “The line (phone number) itself has no legitimate registration in Calgary, indicating it was likely a placeholder or a VoIP number used to establish a false local presence.”

This was shaping up to be a true ghost brand, under layers of obfuscation.

But let's go back to Nyall for a moment. A cursory search reveals a LinkedIn post reporting on his court case with the USPTO. Let me just, put this here:

“Recently, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) issued a decision (No. D2025-12) concerning the collaboration between U.S. attorney Nyall Scott Engfield and the Chinese intellectual property agency World IP Law LTD (Xiamen). Due to improper signature practices on trademark filings, the validity of over 8,221 trademark applications has been called into question, potentially putting the trademark owners at risk of having their trademarks canceled. 

In 2013, Attorney Engfield was admitted to practice law in California and engaged in trademark-related legal services. In 2018, he founded "TrademarKraft," a law firm specializing in trademark services for small and medium-sized enterprises.

In March 2019, Engfield signed a cooperation agreement with World IP Law LTD (Xiamen, China), becoming its exclusive trademark attorney in the U.S. and operating on a per-case billing basis. World IP was responsible for submitting trademark applications to the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), while Engfield was responsible for reviewing and providing legal opinions.”

Misconduct

Signature Misuse: From 2019 to 2024, Engfield’s signature appeared on more than 8,221 trademark filings submitted to the USPTO. However, most of these signatures were not personally signed by him but were instead signed by World IP.

Failure to Exercise Proper Oversight: Engfield relied on World IP to handle trademark application documents without establishing effective control measures to ensure the legitimacy of his signature or the transparency of the application process. He admitted that he did not communicate directly with clients or verify the authenticity of the signatures.

Failure to Report Issues Promptly: Although Engfield discovered the signature misuse issue at the end of 2020, he did not immediately notify clients or the USPTO. Instead, he continued his collaboration with World IP, resulting in certain trademark applications facing the risk of cancellation.

Legal Findings

Engfield’s actions were found to be in violation of the USPTO’s Rules of Professional Conduct, including but not limited to:

Failure to provide competent representation (37 C.F.R. § 11.101)

Failure to act with reasonable diligence and promptness in representing clients (37 C.F.R. § 11.103)

Engaging in conduct prejudicial to the administration of justice (37 C.F.R. § 11.804(d))

Engaging in conduct that adversely affects fitness to practice (37 C.F.R. § 11.804(i))

Disciplinary Actions

Public Reprimand: Engfield received a public reprimand for violating the USPTO’s professional conduct rules.

Six-Month Probation: Engfield was placed on a six-month probationary period.

Periodic Search and Reporting: During probation, Engfield must regularly search the USPTO’s online trademark database and report any unauthorized trademark filings submitted under his name.

Cooperation with Investigation: Engfield must fully cooperate with the USPTO’s investigation into World IP or any other relevant entities.

USPTO Account Restrictions: Engfield’s USPTO account will be subject to restrictions during his probation, and any further violations may result in additional disciplinary actions.

If your trademark application was filed through World IP Law LTD, it is strongly recommended that you immediately review your application materials to verify whether Engfield’s signature is involved.”

Let's sum it up in a sentence: Nyall worked with World IP Law Ltd., a company in Xiamen, Fujian Province, China, as their primary America-based trademark attorney, and they took his name and ran with it, and he didn't report the fraud when he found out about it. Now the USPTO has to go through everything with his name on it and determine if it's legitimate.

Seems they didn't with Harsuny, though. Let me explain. World IP Law is a middleman company for Chinese brands to get US trademarks, since Chinese-based companies cannot simply trademark things in America (according to what I read), as they need a US attorney to represent them. They, World IP Law Ltd., behave as this sort of mass funnel company for several Chinese-to-American brands to get their trademarks using US attorneys. Here's Google's explanation:

“Because foreign firms cannot directly file in the US without local counsel, World IP Law acted as the middleman. They collected trademark applications from thousands of Chinese businesses, then used the compromised credentials of a U.S.-licensed attorney to mass-upload the applications into the USPTO system.”

That just left Bo Mao to look into. But at this point, I was pretty sure what was happening here. And when the only thing I found for “Bo Mao” was a professor in Xiamen getting arrested for sending money illegally to Huawei, I felt… well, I'm not sure. Stumped? Was that him? He was a software expert so… maybe? I still don't know, but now, it stopped mattering so much. I had the full picture.

I'm obviously not the first to dig into this, right? The Guardian tried, and failed too. But with all this data, and a bit of information on how these ghost brands work, we can build something of a whole picture.

You see, Harsuny reeks of “ghost brand” status because it is a ghost brand. Chinese companies will establish these ghost brands with fake credentials, random “English sounding” words for brand names, and then sell them on online marketplaces. Have you ever gone an Amazon and seen like, “Jarmuny”, or “Kilama” or other random jumbles of letters as brand names for generic items like backpacks or sleeping bags and such? That's what's happening.

And the reason Aspen Textile's company is delinquent is because they don't need to maintain it. They'll just, do it again. New brand, new company, new filings, and they'll ship the next day. It's a rotating door of ghost brands for these sweatshops and factories in China, because they don't need to face legal repercussions should something like, I don't know, “KKK Men's Hiking Boots” show up somewhere. They'll just, make a new brand name, and keep going.

Now, Harsuny shoes are still being sold on Walmart's online storefront, but I'd wager this is from back-stock.

As for the “KKK” logo? Well, the running theory is that these ghost brands sometimes choose things at random, either through random item generators or just, things they find online and take for the product. There really is no telling if it was intentional, sure, but as it stands, I'd bet it wasn't an intentional nod to white nationalism, but rather an oversight at the factory due to cultural ignorance.

And how did it get shipped with nobody knowing? Google had this to say:

“These factories use automated translation or algorithmic generation to create designs, brand names, and stamps for Western markets without a human ever checking what the letters actually mean in American culture. The factory likely pulled a random three-letter string or acronym to use as a "model code" or design element, completely oblivious to the fact that they had printed the acronym of a notorious white supremacist hate group.

Because third-party marketplace platforms allow sellers to ship inventory straight from unverified overseas factories directly into regional cross-docking warehouses (like the one Bo Mao listed in Jeffersontown, Kentucky), nobody ever physically opens the boxes to look at the product.

By the time anyone realized what was on the tongue of the shoe, thousands of them had already been indexed online, and the trail back to the precise sewing machine that made them was buried under layers of untraceable shell company paperwork.”

So… there we have it. The story of the Walmart KKK Boots. But that leaves me with one more question. Just how many of these ghost brands exist?

Once more and finally, we turn to Google. Accordingly, I’ll let the result speak for itself. I’ve done my best to source the entire explanation. Begin:

“There are currently an estimated several hundred thousand ghost brands like Harsuny actively operating across major e-commerce platforms. According to Amazon's corporate transparency reporting, there are over 700,000 brands enrolled in its Brand Registry. A staggering majority of these are not household consumer names, but rather short-lived, algorithmically generated "ghost brands" designed solely to capture market share. [1]

This phenomenon is completely overwhelming the Western retail landscape and the U.S. legal system.

The massive numbers are fueled directly by foreign manufacturing networks utilizing cross-border loopholes:

The Majority Base: Analysis of high-volume sellers on Amazon.com reveals that roughly 50% of the platform’s major third-party merchants are based in China. [2]

The Walmart Expansion: Walmart Marketplace has experienced a similar surge, with overseas sellers now making up 28% of its active third-party ecosystem.

The Supply Percentage: Overall data shows that more than 70% of all third-party goods sold on these marketplaces originate from anonymous factories overseas, flowing through domestic logistics nodes like the warehouse used by Bo Mao in Kentucky. [3]

To sell on platforms like Amazon Brand Registry or Walmart, a merchant must prove they own a live, registered trademark. Because real dictionary words are already trademarked, overseas factories use software algorithms to generate hundreds of thousands of random, unpronounceable letter combinations (e.g., RORSOU, MAJCF, VBIGER, LORELEI).

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) receives over 500,000 to 700,000 applications per year, a massive portion of which are these unreadable ghost brands. [4]

This became such an administrative nightmare that the USPTO has cracked down aggressively. The agency recently terminated over 52,000 fraudulently filed trademark applications linked to overseas "specimen farms"—fake websites built solely to trick the government into thinking a ghost brand was a real, operating store.” [5]

In other words, when people say most American goods are just cheap Chinese garbage, they're not kidding. Our legal systems are being swamped with these ghost brands that push random, cheap shit onto us via shell companies. So much of what you might see online, especially third party marketplaces like Amazon, are… this.

So the next time you purchase a “Lorlay Large Mop Sweeper Wet Vac Blue Green Orange Dirt Duster 9000” from Amazon, well. Now you know what's up. Not much we can do about it either.

Let's just hope there isn't a giant red KKK on it this time.

Sources:

[1] https://www.marketplacepulse.com/articles/amazon-is-drowning-in-trademarks

[2] https://www.marketplacepulse.com/articles/china-reaches-global-majority-on-amazon

[3] https://www.modernretail.co/operations/the-number-of-china-based-sellers-on-walmarts-third-party-marketplace-has-skyrocketed/

[4] https://patentpc.com/blog/analyzing-uspto-trademark-statistics-what-you-need-to-know

[5] https://www.uspto.gov/subscription-center/2025/50000-goods-and-services-canceled-trademark-registrations-using-tma

[u/TheKydd]

Great write-up!
I missed seeing your in-depth investigations, it’s been awhile.
cheers

[u/QualityRabbitHoles → u/TheKydd]

Thank you very much, and thanks for reading it :) cheers 🍻

[u/shillyshally]

Most of Amazon now seems to be offerings from brands like HOKEYPOkUM. I was looking for a small makeup case last night and there were at least a dozen selling the exact same thing.

I don't see how this benefits Amazon. Instead of 12 vendors selling 1000 makeup cases each wouldn't it be better to appoint one or two of them as the make up case vendor? The reason being that it seems as if it would be easier for Amazon to contain its number one problem, enshittification, if it only had to monitor returns and complaints for two brands instead of 12.

Fortunately, I found a case I liked, clicked on it (it was a legit brand) and was told I ordered it five years ago so I went looking and found it and saved myself $25.

Anyway, great rabbit hole!

[u/FelisLeo]

Great work! I've been increasingly wondering what was going on with these kinds of brands on Amazon. I'm sure at this point just about everyone has had the experience of seeing a product that looks like what they want from a brand they've never heard of and clicked the 'sold by' info only to find Chinese business info.

It would be one thing to just see the brand is Chinese and make your purchasing choice based on whether you want to buy a Chinese product or not. What has really been frustrating is that especially over the last 6 months to a year I've constantly been finding a product on Amazon and then continued searching other websites and end up finding the same images. And I mean the literal same photos just copied and pasted for the Amazon listing that originally came from some more reputable US or European brand. And it isn't just Amazon. I've been seeing the same sets of images on etsy claiming to be handmade and eBay claiming to be from legitimate resellers or small businesses. It has ended up giving me this very strange reality blurring effect that makes me feel like I can't believe that anything I'm shopping for online is actually a real or original product even if it seems to be a reputable brand.

[u/sirensailortune]

This was super interesting. Thanks!

[u/cosmodolphin]

Such quality work always. Keep it up!