Alibaba Taps BassiurTo Tackle Counterfeiting
Just days after the U.S. government issued a stern warning to the China-based e-tailer, Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. is taking action.Alibaba has appointed former Pfizer Inc. and Apple Inc. executive Matthew Bassiur as VP and head of global intellectual property enforcement, effective January 2016. The move follows several months of mounting criticism and pressure from U.S.
Among its strategies for preventing the sale of counterfeits is its Blue Star program, which allows manufacturers to print unique identifiers in the form of QR codes on their products to enable the authentication and tracking of products sold on Tmall and Taobao Marketplace.
Fake Luxury Goods ‘Could Fund Terrorism’
United Kingdom – Christmas shoppers buying toys for their children may unwittingly be supporting organised crime or even terrorist groups, according to UK border authorities. Officers from Britain’s Border Force have seized a range of fake items worth £56m from ports and airports around the country over the past year. They include toy figures modelled on characters from Disney movie Frozen, Armani watches and designer handbags.
The Intellectual Property Office has urged shoppers to report anything suspicious. In the financial year 2014-15, officers confiscated more than 1.6 million items infringing intellectual property where patents or copyright applies. Immigration Minister James Brokenshire said: “The international trade in counterfeits is linked to serious and organised crime and undercuts honest traders, damaging our economy”.
Lear MoreJail terms for substandard products fakers
The proliferation of substandard products in the country has continued to generate great concern despite efforts by the Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON) to check the menace. The recent directive given the agency by the Federal Government to reduce the volume of substandard products to, at least, 15 percent by next year is quite in order. To ensure compliance with the new order, government also proposed jail terms for manufacturers and importers of fake products.
These fresh measures were unveiled recently by the Director-General of the organization, Dr. Joseph Odumodu, at the 10th year anniversary of SON Conformity Assessment Programme (SONCAP) in Lagos. Undoubtedly, the danger of inferior goods, either manufactured locally or imported, cannot be over-emphasised. Nigerian market cannot continue to be a dumping ground for substandard, cheap and fake products from Asian countries.
10 million smuggled cigarettes haul would have cost taxpayer £2m in lost revenue
A huge haul of ten million cigarettes has been seized by Border Force officers at Killingholme docks. The cigarettes had been shipped to the UK inside an unaccompanied trailer which arrived at the port from Rotterdam in The Netherlands.
Officers discovered the cigarettes hidden inside boxes labelled as textiles for a clothing company. There were exactly ten million cigarettes in the haul. Border Force officers use hi-tech search equipment to combat immigration crime and detect banned and restricted goods that smugglers attempt to bring into the country. They use an array of search techniques, which in addition to sniffer dogs includes carbon dioxide detectors, heartbeat monitors and scanners – as well as visual searches – to find illegal drugs, firearms and tobacco which would otherwise end up causing harm to local people, businesses and communities.
Lear MoreCustoms Intercepts Smuggled Goods Worth N23.07m
Nigeria – The Federal Operations Unit (FOU) of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), Ikeja, on Saturday said it had intercepted smuggled goods valued N23.07 million. The anti-smuggling drive of the Federal Operations Unit Zone ‘A’, Ikeja, received a major boost following the seizure of smuggled frozen poultry products concealed in a specially-built compartment of a truck. The unit also seized 82 bales of used and new ladies’ bags and school bags Physical examination revealed that the truck had 555 cartons of smuggled frozen poultry products.
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Govt loses millions to illegal tobacco trade
Botswana – The Ministry of Health (MoH) and the World Bank said this at a workshop meant to discuss initiatives to eliminate all forms of illicit trade in tobacco products.The government is a signatory to the Protocol to Eliminate Illicit Trade in Tobacco Products 2013.At the forum held at President Hotel, deputy permanent secretary in MoH, HarunaJibril said the implications of the ever increasing illicit trading, cross border smuggling and counterfeit tobacco products are massive.
The workshop provided a platform to enable various stakeholders to share views on how Botswana could fulfill its obligation in line with the FCTC provision to eliminate illicit trade. This comes at a time when the country’s tobacco control bill is expected in Parliament next year.Senior trade facilitation specialist at the World Bank, Enrique Ivanovic said all people trading in tobacco and its products ought to be licensed.Moreover, a competent authority must be set up to issue, renew, suspend or revoke these licenses subject to the provisions of the Protocol, he suggested.
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Counterfeit Cheese, Fish And Vodka: Fake Food And Drinks Are A Very Real Problem
As a consumer, we kind of expect to be tricked about what we eat or drink. How many times have you bought juice, only to later read the fine print on the packaging and see that it’s three percent juice and about 97 percent sugar, water and natural flavoring. And, of course, foods labeled “all natural” can still have far too much sugar or salt than your body needs. But you may also be consuming something that’s counterfeit. And it isn’t only consumers who are being duped. Restaurant owners, suppliers, supermarket chains – any business is at risk of being tricked into selling counterfeit foods to the public. “The topic is high on the agenda for the food associations to increase both awareness and action,” says Laura Gurski, who is steeped in experience working with retailers and consumer packaged goods companies. She is a partner and head of global practices at the management consulting firm, A.T. Kearney.
China’s appetite for bird nests leads smuggling to take flight
Beijing – With China in the grip of a harsh winter, the demand for edible bird’s nests, a delicacy known for its skin benefits, has soared and led to the rise in its smuggling. Also known as cubilose, edible bird’s nests are among the most expensive animal products consumed by humans with China being the world’s largest consumer. However, the increased appetite has driven smuggling of the rare treat, leading to potential health hazards. In mid-September, customs police in China’s Guangdong Province seized more than 700 kilograms of edible bird’s nests produced in Indonesia, worth over 100 million yuan. If choosing a legal import channel, merchants must pay 17 per cent value-added tax, not including fees for transporting and storage. In order to make more money, merchants usually spray water or brush gelatine on the nests to increase their net weight prior to sale. But the practice can cause microbes to develop in the high-protein nests, which may lead to excessive nitrite that would fail an official health check.
Greek crisis and tax hike foster cigarette smuggling
(ANSAmed) – Naples – Consumption of smuggled cigarettes has risen by about 50% in Greece since the economic crisis began, turning the country into a large-scale importer of cigarettes as well as a black-market hub.
This emerged during the signing of an agreement between the Naples Guardia di Finanza (financial police) and British American Tobacco, during which discussion was held on the illegal market of ”Illicit Whites” cigarettes produced legally for different EU markets and which are smuggled and sold in Europe in non-compliance with EU standards and evading taxes.
A study by the economic planning and research center KEPE shows that the largest rise was in November 2010, when the government rose excise duties on them by about 300%. Greece, alongside Italy and Spain, has also become a reference point for smugglers from which to illegally export cigarettes to northern Europe, where the earnings are even higher: in the UK a packet of cigarettes costs an average of 9 euros, while in Norway it is 11. Italy’s Guardia di Finanza investigations show that criminal organizations earn enormous amounts, since they pay between 100 and 150 euros for a crate of cigarettes (20-30 cents per packet) wholesale and then sell the crate for 800-900 euros. Greece has in particular become a departure hub for cigarettes, according to the KPGM study, in containers leaving from the Piraeus and Salonika ports.
China’s counterfeiters aided by Western firms’ weak response
WENZHOU, China (AP) — An Associated Press investigation published last week uncovered systemic fraud in China’s anti-counterfeiting industry. Major multinational companies, blind to problems on the ground, unwittingly paid investigators who themselves manufactured or sold counterfeit goods. In other cases, investigators colluded with the very counterfeiters they were supposed to expose.Fraud in the anti-counterfeiting industry goes well beyond luxury fashion goods, and has impacted products that can be dangerous — including auto parts, pharmaceuticals and critical electrical components,
Many firms treat counterfeiting as a minor cost of doing business in China. Few spend the money required to tackle the powerful, hidden networks that drive China’s multibillion-dollar counterfeiting juggernaut.
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