MIDTOWN SOUTH — A Manhattan fragrance store couldn't make Beliebers out of cops.
The city filed a lawsuit last week against Jack Perfume aiming to shut down the Midtown shop after police busted it for hawking fake Justin Bieber scents over the past year.
Cops first caught whiff of the illegal operation on Sept. 6, when they had a confidential informant purchase a bottle of the teen idol's perfume at the store, according to the lawsuit filed last week in Manhattan Civil Supreme Court. The musk didn't pass muster with a counterfeit merchandise specialist, the lawsuit says.
Cops continued to nose around the store from September to January, having a confidential informant buy knockoff bottles six more times, the lawsuit says. The smell sting culminated Feb. 8, when more than a dozen cops raided the Broadway shop. Police arrested two employees and confiscated 39 phony Bieber bottles during the bust.
Last week a DNAinfo New York reporter found that Jacks Perfume was still selling Bieber bottles for $45.
Employee Clarys Martinez, who was arrested in the February raid, said she didn't know whether the bottles were counterfeit. She said the store's owner, Nizam Chowdhury, purchases them.
"Our job is to come here and to sell," she said. "They never give out that information."
Martinez said Chowdhury was in Bangladesh and could not be reached for comment.
Bieber came out with his first perfume, Someday, in 2011. In June he unveiled his third fragrance, Key.
