first the "nightline 5." >> when cold and flu hold you back, try theraflu express max in new caplets. the only cold and flu caplet has has a maximum strength formula with a sensation you instantly feel. theraflu for a powerful comeback. listerine kills in my opinion% of bad breath germs for a 100% fresh mouth. feeling 100% means you feel bold enough to assist a magician. or dance. listerine. bring out the bold. >> number one in just 60 seconds. [blues / country music] [beeping alarms] if it's in your nature to be out there... ...don't miss cabela's all your favorite brands like 40% off cabela's mt050 whitetail extreme gear 25% off all new in-stock cabela's optics $90 off a masterbuilt elite electric smoker and $100 off a quantum tour kvd casting reel shop for incredible deals in store and at cabelas.com y26gly yvpy good evening. thank you for joining us. you've heard of knock-off bags, counterfeit couture, fake relekdss. here's a crime you may never comes to laundry detergent. cleaning up at your expense. here's abc's nick watt with another look at the investigation. >> we need to be quick and thorough and hit them hard. >> reporter: california, early morning armed officers swoop. >> the troops are rolling in. >> reporter: they're not after drugs, weapons, moonshine. oh, no. today the l.a. county sheriff's department is on the scent of -- dodgy detergent. and hidden reportedly stolen speedboat, medical hardware and coffee pots -- buckets and buckets of apparently counterfeit tide. in the office, fake labels for fake gain? >> this might be the distribution center? >> it is. it is. >> reporter: tide in five-gallon buckets. why do we think it's fake? >> there's no such thing here. that's what's crazy. >> there is no such product? >> there's no such thing. they do not make this. five-gallon buckets. >> reporter: the alleged contraband is sent to the lab to find out what it is, if it ain't tide. >> without sounding scary the rifrgs are large. we just don't know. you don't know where it came from. like putting your family in a car that you had no idea who made it or where it came from. >> reporter: we'll follow that trail in a minute. counterfeiting they say is a nearly $500 billion a year business. >> hundreds and hundreds of labels. >> reporter: the past year proctor and gamble has helped identify and close 50 factories cranking out counterfeit goods. >> be cognizant of that, be safe. >> reporter: the boys in blue have a nearby address. one step closer they hope to the mr. big to another factory. >> when we find the source of this we're going to find some kind of organized criminal organization. >> reporter: i'm riding with vet rant lieutenant jeffrey diedrich. >> bodies trashed. one shoulder surgery, broken this hand three times. >> from? stuff on the job? >> yeah. >> reporter: he now heads the l.a. county sheriff's counterfeit and piracy team. laundry detergent -- >> you can smell it. i don't get it. >> reporter: cigarettes, alcohol. detergent? >> if we're driving around with a kilo of cocaine, we're nervous. these guys are driving around vanloads of this stuff every day like nothing. if you made as much mon selling counterfeit tide as heroin? what would you choose? the tide. you're not going to do 40 years in prison. >> reporter: the math goes something like this. dealers buy the stuff for maybe $5 a bucket, and we found it for sale online for at least five times that. 25 bucks for that one. here's another one. $35 for that. within 20 miles of where i am right now, i'm being offered four -- four different sellers. >> we started seeing this really escalate starting about a year ago. it's showing up all over the place. and the social media is the enabler. >> reporter: in places like texas, illinois, manhattan, where we found this ad offering samples and a free laundry bag with the purchase of six gallons. >> the product comes in a five-gallon bucket. that's a huge tip-off that the product is illegal, counterfeit. we don't sell product in ve public. >> reporter: procter & gamble does not sell downey or gain in five-gallon buckets either. so this, this, and this they say must be fake. detergent seize in california has now been analyzed at procter & gamble's lab in cincinnati. >> it actually looks and smells kind of like detergent. but we found it had very high water content. >> reporter: fake but effective? >> this is a chocolate pudding stain on a t-shirt or on a child's onesie. that gets washed in water. this was washed in the counterfeit detergent. and this was washed in the tide liquid. when you actually use the counterfeit detergent, you can see that it's not that much different than just using water by itself. >> we're here to discuss the impact of counterfeits on consumer health and safety -- >> reporter: earlier this year, a procter & gamble executive testified before congress on the issue. >> p and g takes counterfeiting very seriously. counterfeiting is consumer fraud, lane and simple. >> reporter: the company is fighting back, hunting down leads and handing their findings to law enforcement. >> we realize this was something that it was -- that we couldn't handle ourselves. but we were really concerned about what kind of fraud was happening here with our consumers. >> we get tips from the community. we get tips from private investigation firms. we get tips from citizens. in this situation, the tip came from procter & gamble. watching now is hidden camera footage shot by a procter & gamble hired investigator on a recon mission at that warehouse in compton. that's the man diedrich and his men just arrested. sticking fake downy labels on buckets filled with apparently fake downy fabric softener. investigators believe crooks are selling mostly online. >> with the explosion of social media and the internet, it's really taken off. it's become a real problem. >> reporter: and some people are selling it without kwi not the real deal. >> fund-raiser for spain trip for my daughter. my son's baseball team is se selling five-gallon buckets of laundry detergent. fund raise are for my day care, tide. no generic homemade stuff, claiming this is the real deal. it's not. >> there's one here for a student ministry. so these are, you know, highly lucrative fund-raisers for these people. then when we have to tell them it becomes a really emotional situation for everybody involved. >> reporter: okay, back on the front line on the streets of l.a. >> this is a unique caper here. >> reporter: go ahead rick and his men are chasing down a lead, an address they picked up during the warehouse raid earlier. >> it's all cash. so you always have the propensity for some kind of armed robbery or some kind of robbery to steal the money. and the person selling the product is going to have to defend it. >> reporter: here we are. half a d simultaneous raids this morning and at this house they found a lot of money. a suburban home. yep, apparently counterfeit detergent, and maybe $10,000 in cash. plus a firearm. sheriff's department thinks it's loot and laundry. a unique caper indeed. i'm nick watt for "nightline" in los angeles. up next, talk about a good dog. owner thousands of dollars as an instagram star. and later, a tribute to "brady bunch" star florence henderson, america's favorite tv mom. ? all of them had hair of gold like their mother ? ? the youngest one in curls ? erc plaque psoriasis made a simple trip to the grocery store anything but simple. so i had an important conversation with my dermatologist about humira. he explained that humira works inside my body to target and help block a specific source of inflammation that contributes to my symptoms. in clinical trials, most adults taking humira were clear or almost clear, and many saw 75% and even 90% clearance in just 4 months. humira can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis. serious, sometimes fatal infections and cancers, including lymphoma, have happened; as have blood, liver, and nervous system problems, serious allergic reactions, and new or worsening heart failure. before treatment, get tested for tb. ain fungal infections are common, and if you've had tb, hepatitis b, are prone to infections, or have flu-like symptoms or sores. don't start humira if you have an infection. ask about humira, the #1 prescribed biologic by dermatologists. clearer skin is possible. ? (laughs..) here it is. ? ? hey dad! ? wishes do come true. the lincoln wish list sales event is on. get exceptional offers on the lincoln family of luxury vehicles. sign and drive off in a new 2017 lincoln mkc with zero down it's been said dogs are man's best friend. in this case it's quite true. the yorkshire terrier revved up his owner's social life, raking in big money on instagram. juju chang in another installment of "social stars." >> reporter: this is herman. he's a 1-year-old maltese yorkie. he loves running. snacking. >> good boy. >> reporter: and hoodies. >> there it is. >> reporter: oh, yeah. he also likes posing for photos, of course. herman is what you'd call a doggy influencer, modeling urban streetwear has garnered him over 40,000 fallers on instagram and made hip the furry face of big-name sponsors. caesar and van's. it's turned this four-pound furry ball of cuteness into a social media celebrity. >> let's change. >> reporter: herman's owner, david yip, a 37-year-old bachelor, an overworked sales manager who says this little pooch changed his life. >> he's the first dog i've ever had. i was in a client's office last year. they asked me to dogsit a couple of weeks when they went on family vacation. when he had to go home i was a little bummed out. lucky, he was the last left out of the litter. >> reporter: david rediscovered his youthful love of photography. >> i started taking pictures of him. >> reporter: a two-pound puppy. >> the pictures started getting popular so i started his own instagram. people started liking it online. >> reporter: boom, an instagram star is born. it's the secret sauce to social success. one part adorable pet, two parts cute clothing, three parts great lighting. and voila, a pic made for instagram. of course you have to top it off game. "hey, what's cooking? "posing with great goose, "who wants to pawty with me?" sitting at the "nightline" even correspond desk? really, you have to be this cute all the time? >> good captioning is important. it's telling a story, still giving somebody else that reason to tune in. >> reporter: kyla runs hello society, an agency that represents social media stars of all kinds. why are we obsessed with animals reaction to cute. it elicits these actual warm fuzzy feelings in us. >> reporter: it was kyla's team that discovered david and herman in toronto. >> how can you not look at herman and love him? he's this tiny adorable fluffball that wears hoodieses. >> how does it get big? >> their owners are incredible activers. the sets and the the stories and every photo is really different. >> reporter: keeping it going against capitalizing on herman's stardom. does grumpy cat and gifpalm ring a bell? they fetch major deals for owners. when you get to be a top dog in a doggy influencer market you get the glam treatment. cocktail hours. the finest doggy treats money can buy. and rubbing elbows as it were with golden doodles in spiffy suits. rocker dogs in bark sabbath jean jackets. these dogs on the catwalk famous in their own right. impressive social media following. >> this is iggy zoe, 35,000 followers on instagram. >> 127,000 followers. >> reporter: even though they're just starting out, david says herman's instagram presence has brought in deals close to $10,000. but for david, herman is enriching his life in ways money can't buy. >> herman definitely helped me get away from my workaholicism. herman and i are going to take on the world, right, >> reporter: helping redy cover all passions. sprucing up his social life. >> does it concern you at all that people might be going out and grabbing pets just to try to turn them into insta famous pets? >> it's very hard to make an animal famous on instagram. it's a full-time job. >> reporter: could it really be that hard to make cute animals famous? i policied a hypothetical challenge, could they make a star out of my 1-year-old >> she's got step one covered, she is insanely adorable. number two, good grooming. >> okay, come on. let's go. hi, how are you? you're going in a labradoodle, you're going to come out a star. right now she doesn't want to be internet famous. >> i guess that's what it takes to be a social media star. >> she's all glammed up and ready t look out, world, here we come. my hershey in all her fluffy cuteness seems more interested in chilling than stardom. >> this is why she can't be insta famous, she doesn't take commands. you're the perfect dog, you even pooped, this is why i love you. oh, well, it's a dog's life. for "nightline" i'm juju chang in new york. next, celebrating the life of america's tv mother, "brady bunch" star and "dancing with henderson. ? then we became the brady bunch ? (my hero zero by lemonheads) zero really can be a hero. get zero down, zero deposit, and zero first month's payment on select volkswagen models. this black friday at the he went to catholic schools then was very good at it, and politics. he became an activist for the poor and working class. in 1956 after being expelled by cuba's american-supported dictator have a lens i don't bautista, castro returned secretly with brother raul, che guevara, and others. they hid out in the mountains and waged a guerilla war. >> the road to havana paved with glory for rebel chieftain fidel castro. >> reporter: castro finally expelled bautista and took over. fidel promised democracy but squashed all dissent with jail or expulsions, even executions. he nationalized all u.s. businesses. in 1961, president john f. kennedy, just elected, approved a cia-trained invasion force of 1,300 cuban exiles who went ashore at the bay of pigs. castro demolished them. a huge propaganda victory. discovered castro had let the soviets put nuclear missiles in cuba. >> it shall be the policy of this nation to regard any nuclear missile launched from cuba against any nation in the western hemisphere as an attack by the soviet union on the united states. >> translator: yes, we were very close to the nuclear war. extremely close. >> reporter: ultimately the soviets removed the missiles. fidel continued to promote leftist movements in latin popular until his death. even castro's critics praised his advances in health care and in education. but the inefficiency of cuba's soviet-style economy produced dissent. in 1980, more than 125,000 cubans, some expelled, many allowed to just leave, braved rough seas and dehydration to come to the united states in the mariel boat lift. in the early 1990s, the fall of dollars in soviet aid and trade, leading to widespread shortages and rationing. >> translator: with the demise of the soviet union, we have suffered the equivalent to a treason. we have felt betrayed. >> reporter: castro fought back by courting tourism and business. in 2006, just before intestinal surgery, he gave up power temporarily to his younger brother raul. he never took the reins again. made it official in 2008. but he was not started writing newspaper columns, receiving visitors, including hugo chavez of venezuela. suddenly, summer of 2010, he began displaying his indomitable drive again in public, giving tv interviews, laying flowers at the tomb of the fallen, exhorting the communist youth, addressing the cuban parliament. now the world will see how a new era of cuban-american diplomacy changes his island home. americans gradually returning, it may no longer be fidel castro's cuba. >> jim avila joins us on the phone. jim has been to cuba many, many times. this comes just after those historic relations between cuba and the united states. how do you think this might now effect change in cuba? >> i think that it will continue on the same course. at this point i think the changes in the united states, actually, might have more effect than the change with fidel castro. because while fidel castro was considered, even to this day, the george washington of his country among those who remain in cuba, he was also a very divisive figure. and he has recently sort of faded into the woodwork, raul castro has taken over, and he really is, raul castro really has been running the day-to-day government. fidel has not.

Related Keywords

Compton , California , United States , New York , Malta , Texas , Havana , Ciudad De La Habana , Cuba , Illinois , George Washington , Villa Clara , Russia , Toronto , Ontario , Canada , Cincinnati , Ohio , Spain , Venezuela , Americans , America , Cubans , Soviet , Soviets , Maltese , American , Cuban , David Yip , Iggy Zoe , Jeffrey Diedrich , Herman Instagram , Raul Castro , Hugo Chavez , Florence Henderson , Los Angeles , Lincoln Mkc , John F Kennedy , Jim Avila , Fidel Castro ,