Dusseldorf In protective vests and full gear, police officers and investigators storm a huge warehouse. A video from Amazon shows the work of the in-house special unit Counterfeit Crimes Unit (CCU). In cooperation with local authorities, she searches for counterfeiters and tries to put a stop to them.
Now the special unit is reporting a new success: together with the local Chinese authorities, the CCU has tracked down and broken up three counterfeiting rings in the provinces of Guangdong and Jiangxi.
The authorities seized 240,000 counterfeit products – including counterfeit luxury and sporting goods from the brands Hugo Boss, Lacoste, Puma and Under Armour, but also more than 130,000 counterfeit car accessories and counterfeit logos.
A total of 80,000 counterfeit luxury items and more than 30,000 counterfeit items of clothing were confiscated. This prevented companies with fake identities and licenses from registering sales accounts via Amazon and selling the goods to unsuspecting customers. The current operation resulted in 84 arrests.
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The counterfeiting gangs are mostly located in China. The plagiarisms are then often distributed via the Amazon distribution channel in the USA and Europe. Based on the information collected by the Amazon special unit, law enforcement authorities were also able to arrest middlemen and search their warehouses in Great Britain and the USA.
Amazon confiscates more than three million products
Amazon founded the CCU division two years ago. It consists of former FBI agents and data analysts whose detective work is based on the combination of IP addresses, log-in data, bank details and email addresses. Amazon passes on your findings to state authorities in order to be able to access them if there is sufficient suspicion of fraud.
Working with local Chinese authorities, Amazon tracked down and dismantled three counterfeiting rings in Guangdong and Jiangxi provinces.
(Photo: Amazon)
Kebharu Smith, head of the CCU, says, “Our efforts to find and dismantle counterfeiting networks are having an effect.” The unit’s successes are disrupting counterfeit supply chains and halting illegal activities.
In the past year alone, Amazon has confiscated or had confiscated more than three million products. A number of them had already been sent to Amazon’s logistics centers and were withdrawn from circulation there. Others were seized during raids by the authorities.
The Amazon unit has already contributed to numerous manhunt successes with its work. The most recent was a raid in the UK where £170,000 in counterfeit CDs was seized.
GoPro, Valentino and Cartier affected by counterfeits
Andy Cope, of the UK police unit PIPCU, which investigates copyright infringement, said: “This should send out a strong warning that counterfeiting of products will not be tolerated.”
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According to an investigation by Amazon, charges were recently brought against 13 people in the USA who had sold counterfeit wrestling belts with a sales value of around 500 euros each. Brands such as Cartier, Salvatore Ferragamo and Valentino as well as the camera manufacturer GoPro were also able to stop counterfeiters with the help of Amazon.
Counterfeit products not only violate the trademark rights of the original manufacturer. They can also pose a risk to consumers, for example when it comes to medicines or electronic devices.
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In the current case, these were car parts that are only similar to the original parts and have not passed any official tests. The unit was able to seize counterfeit BMW, Porsche and General Motors products.
The OECD and European Union Intellectual Property Office (Euipo) report ‘Dangerous Fakes’ shows that criminal counterfeiters are increasingly selling goods that pose health and safety risks. This also includes the fact that car spare parts are being counterfeited even more frequently.
According to Europol, counterfeit products are increasingly being sold via e-commerce platforms. The perpetrator structure ranges from lone perpetrators to professionally organized counterfeiting gangs to organized crime.
This puts platform operators like Amazon under pressure to take action against the plagiarism themselves. Amazon was inactive for a long time and was therefore heavily criticized, including by the brand manufacturers.
It is about high damage: According to estimates by the OECD and Euipo, gangs with counterfeit products make annual sales of more than 500 billion dollars worldwide. This corresponds to around 3.3 percent of world trade.
More: The billion problem: How Amazon’s investigators fight counterfeiters