Leicester man jailed after gang caught with 1.2 million illegal cigarettes.
A man from Leicester caught red-handed in a car park has been jailed for his role in a huge cigarette smuggling plot.
Atlaf Umarji was a member of a gang which was arrested with more than 1.2 million non-duty paid cigarettes outside a Little Chef in the Stoke area in January 2014.
The operation, led by HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) investigators, resulted in the seizure of a haul of 777 branded cigarettes, worth more than £600,000 in unpaid duty.
Umarji, of Gwendolen Road, attempted to escape in a van and was filmed throwing cigarettes out of the window as he drove away, HMRC said.
The 50-year-old and his accomplices – Paul Taft, Surinder Heer and Mark Taylor – appeared at Stoke Crown Court last week and pleaded guilty to fraudulent evasion of excise duty.
https://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/news/leicester-news/leicester-man-jailed-after-gang-2420428
Lear MoreKorean Women Caught In Chennai Trying To Smuggle 24 Kg Gold Under Clothes.
Two Korean women passengers were detained for allegedly smuggling 24 kg of gold worth Rs. 8 crore by the customs department at the Anna International Terminal today, officials said.
The customs officials detained two South Korean women who were found walking in a suspicious manner as if they were carrying a heavy load.
Acting on specific inputs, the air intelligence unit personnel of the department intercepted the passengers who arrived from Hong Kong, an official press release said.
A personal examination of the two revealed 12 gold bars weighing one kg each concealed in their inner garments, it said.
Lear More
Apple thanks Korean police for seizing $900,000 of counterfeit accessories.
Apple will be thanking the Korean police for seizing and preventing the sale of counterfeit accessories for its products worth 1 billion won ($892,000), by presenting a plaque to investigators who apprehended local criminals behind the trade.
Senior regional director for Apple’s Asia-Pacific operations Donald Shruhan will reportedly visit the Bucheon Sosa police station in Bucheon, Gyeonggi, on Friday to present the plaque to the officers involved in the regional crackdown.
The criminals were locally distributing fake Apple charing cables and earphones, reports the Korea Herald. The knock-off products are said to have been imported from China, with police still working to trace how the goods entered the country.
The apprehended distributors are also under investigation on suspicions of fraud and trademark violation.
Shruhan is currently leading Apple’s anti-counterfeiting operations in China, and previously worked with Pfizer to crack down on counterfeit Viagra sales and production.
Gold smuggling racket busted.
Personnel of the Commissioner’s Task Force (CTF) on Tuesday unearthed a gold smuggling racket, operating from Mumbai, with the confiscation of jewellery weighing 16.617 kg, valued at ₹5,05,98,765. Four persons — Shilpesh Jain and Jeyesh Jain of Mumbai and Manish Jain and Pankaj Jain of the city — were arrested for their alleged involvement in the racket.
The gang was allegedly selling gold without any bills and was evading tax causing huge loss to the government.
The modus operandi of the traders was to import the yellow metal illegally from Mumbai and sell the same to the bullion merchants in Guntur, Visakhapatnam, Vijayawada and other places.
The team led by CTF Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) G. Rajiv Kumar laid a trap and took the four persons into custody, while they were taking gold in a hotel at Governorpet.
https://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Vijayawada/gold-smuggling-racket-busted/article25944418.ece
Lear More53-yr-old arrested at IGI airport for trying to smuggle gold worth Rs 35 lakh.
The Customs on Monday arrested a 53-year-old labourer working at a garments factory in Punjab from the Indira Gandhi International Airport after he was caught pretending to be a wheelchair-bound differently-abled passenger to allegedly smuggle gold worth R35 lakh. The gold was concealed in a cloth belt, which the passenger was wearing around his waist, officials said.
According to a Customs officer, the man, landed at the Delhi airport from Dubai and was intercepted after he crossed the green channel on the basis of a tip-off.
“He was asked to co-operate for personal frisking and baggage search. During the search, we found the man was wearing a belt on his waist inside his clothes. Inside the belt, there were three pieces of gold weighing 1.2 kgs. Total value of the recovered gold is Rs 35.22 lakh. The passenger was arrested and the gold was seized,” said Anubha Sinha, joint commissioner, Customs, IGI airport.
Lear MoreShanghai police bust gang for fake Dyson hairdryers.
Shanghai police have cracked a criminal gang suspected of manufacturing and selling fake Dyson hairdryers, a fashionable icon coveted by the Chinese middle class and young people.
The gang of 36, based in Huizhou, Guangdong province, had a clear division of labour in production, wholesale and retail, said the police, who received reports from the public last August that some consumers had bought fake Dyson hairdryers from stores on various online shopping platforms.
Two production sites were raided, and the suspects were arrested on Dec 14 on suspicion of counterfeiting a registered trademark, police said last Friday.
Nearly 400 finished products, more than 1,500 semi-finished products and more than 200,000 spare parts were seized.
The hairdryers by Dyson, headquartered in Britain, have been popular since their market debut in China in August 2016.
https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/shanghai-police-bust-gang-for-fake-dyson-hairdryers
Lear More
NAFDAC seizes fake products worth N60 million in Lagos.
The National Agency for Food Drugs Administration and Control (NAFDAC) has confiscated fake drugs worth N60 million from a warehouse in Lagos.
This was contained in a press statement signed by NAFDAC Director General, Prof. Moji Adeyeye on Monday in Abuja.
“Following a tip off by a concerned citizen, officers of Investigation and Enforcement Directorate of the NAFDAC and the police stormed the supermarket and warehouse owned by one Mr. Nzube at the Trade fair complex Lagos.
“The warehouse was raided for possession, storage, importation, sales and distribution of dangerous and unregistered cosmetics.
“Found in the store were Glutathione Injection, Herbal Skin Doctor Collagen Ampoules, Lansexin in vial bottles, Kojic-San Injection Face Cream, B.F.G.F Collagen Polypeptide in vial bottles, amongst others,” she said.
https://www.pmnewsnigeria.com/2019/01/07/nafdac-seizes-fake-products-worth-n60-million-in-lagos/
Lear MoreMan caught trying to smuggle 90,000 cigarettes through Manchester Airport.
A smuggler was snared trying to bring 90,000 cigarettes through Manchester Airport. The total duty and VAT value of the haul was worth the equivalent of funding two kidney transplants on the NHS, said HM Revenue and Customs.
Radhwan Ahmed Mawlood, 44, was stopped at the airport carrying 60,000 non UK duty-paid cigarettes in two luggage bags in November last year. He had flown from Iraq via Istanbul in Turkey.
HMRC said he later admitted that a third bag in his name, on a separate flight arriving into Manchester, contained another 30,000 cigarettes. All three luggage bags were subsequently seized and Mawlood was arrested.
The total duty and VAT of the haul was £31,560. HMRC said Mawlood claimed his family had bought the cigarettes in Iraq and he planned to give them away to friends in the UK.
Lear MoreMaterialism as Predictor of Purchase Intention towards Counterfeit Products: A Conceptual Framework
Consumer decision to buy fake goods has given rise to a worldwide crisis of existence for originalbrands. Counterfeit products are those which bear a trademark that is identical to, orindistinguishable from, a trademark registered by another party and violates the rights of theowner (Kapferer, 1995; Chaudhry and Walsh, 1996; and Eisend and Schuchert-Guler, 2006). Thedemand for consumption of counterfeit has grown dramatically in the past few years. The itemsinclude electronics, food stuff, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, etc. Although consumers are aware ofthe ethical issues related to counterfeit products (Nill and Schultz, 1996) , research has unfo ld edthe fact that ap proxi mately one-third of the consumers would knowingly buy illicit goods (Tomet al., 1998; and Phau et al., 2001). In addition, Grossman and Shapiro (1988) opine thatconsumers buy counterfeit products deliberately. As demand for these products escalated, themarket flourished to grow at a fast pace, and has become a topic of debate amongst manyresearchers. The demand from the consumers is a major reason encouraging the existence andgrowth of counterfeit products (Ang et al., 2001).
The willingness to buy or not to buy counterfeit products depends on the worth the consumersassociate with materialism. In the words of Richins and Dawson (1992), materialism is the valuegiven to the possession and procurement of material goods in a way to achieve the goals of life.Mason (2001) opines that in order to segregate themselves from others socially, consumersacquire goods to flaunt their status and feel socially accepted. In the Indian context, research hasbeen conducted pertaining to counterfeiting of drugs (Bhushan et al., 2007), counterfeitingcurrencies (Bose and Das, 2013), counterfeiting western brands (Nakassis, 2010) andcounterfeiting product and intellectual property rights (Sarkar and D’Silva, 2013). Indiandomestic marketplace is flooded with counterfeit goods and thus it becomes imperative toinvestigate the factors influencing consumers’ preference for counterfeit goods and thedimensions having an impact on their purchase intention.
Consumption of counterfeit products is increasing with the proliferating demand for brandedproducts. The reasons be hind this increase can be liberalization of trade policies, hugeproduction of counterfeit products, availability of sophisticated techniques at low cost and theupsurge in usage of Internet worldwide (Alcock et al., 2003).
https://www.questia.com/read/1P4-2184907271/materialism-as-predictor-of-purchase-intention-towards
Lear More
Torrevieja’s Local Police destroy fake items worth around €700,000.
A SPECIALIST group of Torrevieja’s Local Police has begun to destroy a significant amount of the counterfeit goods that have been confiscated during the past year.
A total of 35,000 fake items such as watches, sunglasses, CDs and DVDs estimated to have been worth around €700,000 on the black market have been crushed.
Mayor of Torrevieja, Jose Manuel Dolon, was present at the event when the material was destroyed by heavy equipment.
He said: “The subject of counterfeit goods is something we take very seriously in Torrevieja as it is something that ultimately affects genuine traders.”
Any items that have not been tampered with and lacking any official registered trademark, such as clothing and other accessories, is delivered to the Department of Social Services and Welfare and are then allocated and distributed to families in the municipality that are most in need.
Lear More