https://www.npr.org/2022/06/17/ [login to see] /ebay-seller-challenge-coins-border-patrol-horseback-haiti-migrants-mexico
A Utah man has found himself in the middle of a controversy this week over a set of challenge coins he sold on eBay featuring a shocking image.
The coins depict the now-infamous, real-life image of a Border Patrol agent chasing down Haitian migrants along the U.S.-Mexico border last September.
Unless he hears otherwise from authorities, the seller, Andy Christiansen, told NPR that he still has about 20 coins left and intends on putting them up for sale again.
"It's strictly a business for me," he told NPR over the phone. And it's apparently a popular one at that.
Once the eBay listing of this particular coin made its rounds, Christiansen said, it was "flying off the shelf" at one point. Interest was big enough to inflate the cost of one coin to nearly $500.
Though the coins are emblazoned with "U.S. Border Patrol" and phrases like "You will be returned" and "Reining it in since May 28, 1924" (the date the Border Patrol was established), the agency's leadership maintains it is not an official Customs and Border Protection (CBP) coin.