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When China floods the world with illegal goods

Chinese business has been booming for close to 30 years, with the economic reform going back to 1978. In those three decades, the most largely populated country in the world has gone from a state of under-development, recovered from its political turmoil, and reached the third rank of millionaires in the world, after the United States and Japan. But if the People’s Republic has developed a real and solid economy, the extent in which it has indulged in counterfeiting has reached unbelievable levels, at the expenses of the rest of the world, notably Europe.

FEATURE: iPhone Smuggling

A man crossing the Hong Kong-China border with 146 iPhones strapped around his belly was apprehended by Shenzhen officials before he even got a good core workout. The 47-pound bundle, confiscated on March 6, was reportedly the biggest iHaul ever found on a single smuggler. When his homemade belt set off the metal detector at border security, officials told CNN that the man assured them he was wearing metal accessories, “but we didn’t believe him.”

Whether or not the man will face charges is unknown. But he is far from the first to concoct such a scheme: China is home to a widespread “gray market” of clandestine iPhones, which are hocked to tech-thirsty urban tastemakers.

Warning vs fake medicine

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has warned the public about a fake variant of a fruit punch-flavored antibiotic being sold in the market.  In an advisory, the FDA said it had confirmed that Klaricid Clarithromycin 250mg/5ml granules for suspension in fruit punch flavor No. L7877, supposedly manufactured in Canada, is a counterfeit drug after Abbott Laboratories Philippines compared it with the registered drug.
http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/679084/warning-vs-fake-medicine

Locals Make Grab for Confiscated Fakes Slated for Destruction in China

The level of counterfeiting in China is widely known—it’s enormous. In a recent episode in eastern China, authorities tried to destroy over 30 tonnes of substandard and fake products, but found they were overwhelmed by a grasping public, who came to collect their own haul before it could be destroyed.

This took place on March 11, when the municipal government in Xuzhou city, one of the largest cities in the prosperous Jiangsu Province on China’s coast, announced that it had accumulated 35.7 tonnes of counterfeit products worth over 285,000 yuan (about $45,487)—and would soon set about destroying them.
 

http://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/1282760-tons-of-counterfeits-in-china-slated-for-destruction-make-way-back-to-market/

Name brand OEM factories in China make real and fake alike

Up to 80% of luxury goods sold on China’s online platforms are reportedly knockoffs, many of which come from legitimate OEM factories of the brands, reports China’s Tencent news outlet.   An unnamed source told Tencent that many of the luxury goods on online overseas shopping platforms are fake. Zhou Ting, an expert in the field, said that according to a study in 2013, 80% of the luxury items sold online in China are counterfeit. Most of these items cost one-tenth to one-fourth of the real item’s tag price.

http://www.wantchinatimes.com/news-subclass-cnt.aspx?id=20150315000098&cid=1502

Excise tax hike on cigarettes irrational choice for Washington

The Washington Legislature appears again poised to go to the cigarette excise tax well. A proposal to hike the state’s excise tax by another 50 cents — to $3.52 per pack — would exacerbate an already large smuggling problem and offer little in the way of gains to public health.

We have created a statistical model to measure the degree to which cigarette smuggling occurs in most American states. Through 2013, our model reported that Washington had the third-highest smuggling rate among 47 states. Our estimate shows that, of all the cigarettes consumed in Washington that year, 46.4 percent were obtained as a result of tax evasion or avoidance. The state’s smuggling rate would be four points higher if we did not subtract out cigarette smuggling exports going to Canada.

http://watchdog.org/205831/excise-tax-hike-cigarettes-irrational-choice-washington/