Second Sentenced for Smuggling Counterfeit Cancer Drugs
The U.S. District Court of the Eastern District of Missouri sentenced SabahhadinAkman, an owner of the Turkish firm Ozay Pharmaceuticals, to 30 months imprisonment and a $150,000 fine for smuggling counterfeit, misbranded and adulterated cancer treatment drugs into the U.S., including multiple shipments of Altuzan, the Turkish version of Avastin.
In August 2014, Akman pleaded guilty to the same charges. Akman’s sentencing follows that of his business partner, OzkanSemizoglu, who in October 2014 was sentenced to 27 months in federal prison on similar charges.
http://www.infozine.com/news/stories/op/storiesView/sid/60915/
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The cigarettes that worry tobacco firms
Tobacco companies are warning of an increase in smuggling if the UK passes a law removing branding from cigarette packets. This is what happened when Australia shifted to plain packaging in 2012, it’s been reported, and the biggest rise was found in sales of brands known as “illicit whites”. Elle Metz asks why.
The most popular illegally sold cigarette brand in Australia is called Manchester, according to a 2013 study by KPMG. It’s not a counterfeit – it’s not designed to resemble a cigarette manufactured by a different company – but the packet is made to look entirely traditional.
http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-magazine-monitor-30949434
Lear MoreResearch and Markets: Anti-counterfeit and Brand Protection – Luxury Products, Beauty Products and Apparel: Potential Synergies in Shared Marketing and Distribution
The landscape for the brand protection business has been evolving substantially in the last few years and continues to do so. The scale and reach of the counterfeiting problem continues to grow dramatically to a significant extent due to two big drivers that in particular have been causing accelerated growth of counterfeit products finding their way in to global supply chains:
– China – Today the number one counterfeiter nation in the World – both for exports and for consumption within their own domestic market – Indeed up to some 80% of all counterfeit branded products are thought to originate in China according to the International Anti Counterfeiting Coalition (IACC)
http://www.sys-con.com/node/3281994
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DEA: Narco-drones not major smuggling concern, but could help set up attacks on agents
When Mexican authorities discovered a small, unmanned drone carrying about six pounds of methamphetamine that had crashed about two miles from the U.S. border, it raised a lot of concerns among observers of the drug trade that this new technology will make it more difficult to hunt down narco-traffickers and easier for smugglers to get their illicit products into the United States.
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Rising smuggling challenges market monitors
The trading of smuggled and counterfeit goods in HCMC is on the rise, challenging local market monitors, according to the city’s market monitoring agency.
The agency said in a report released on December 30 that most of the goods were consumer goods, equipment and spare parts imported illegally from China.
Last year, the agency inspected nearly 7,200 sites, up 104.69% compared to the year earlier and detected more than 5,490 violations, including over 1,700 cases related to smuggled cigarettes with nearly 640,000 packages confiscated.
http://english.vietnamnet.vn/fms/business/120208/rising-smuggling-challenges-market-monitors.html
Lear MoreFake Apple Watches appear on eBay
Fake Apple Watches appear on eBayFake prototypes of the Apple Watch have begun selling on eBay for absurd amounts of money. This week, the so-called prototypes have been listed on the auction site and sold for hundreds of dollars. Questionable descriptions and clearly non-Apple product designs gave away the fact that the prototypes were fake, yet people have been duped into buying them anyways.
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Khalil foils attempts to smuggle kids medicine, evade customs fees
Authorities foiled Tuesday a number of attempts to evade customs fees and smuggle illegal products into Lebanon, Finance Minister Ali Hasan Khalil said.
“Powder is being brought in and then turned into medicine for children, which is illegal and unhealthy,” Khalil told reporters after he arrived at the airport’s storage rooms.
Global Anti-counterfeit Packaging Market 2015-2019
Anti-counterfeit packaging is the process of providing a secure packaging to products to reduce counterfeiting or imitation. The packaging not only helps companies to reduce losses incurred because of counterfeiting but also improves the safety of packaged goods. Governments in various countries are taking strong measures to stop counterfeiting by spreading awareness among consumers as how to identify the counterfeit products. The practice of counterfeiting is widespread in developing countries as consumers are unaware about the process of product authentication.
TechNavio’s analysts forecast the Global Anti-counterfeit Packaging market to grow at a CAGR of 16.23 percent over the period 2014-2019.
How Product Placement Took Over Science Fiction, From E.T. To Star Trek
These days, product placement is an accepted part of science fiction. We’re used to seeing big brands splashed all over every TV show and movie about aliens or the future. But it wasn’t always this way. Here’s the quick-and-very-dirty history of how on-screen advertising became a science fiction mainstay.
Science fiction helped to invent product placement, with Steven Spielberg’s shoehorning of Reese’s Pieces into E.T., making them the official candy of penis-fingered growly alien visitors.
http://io9.com/how-product-placement-took-over-science-fiction-from-e-5061426
Lear MoreCCFI slaps legal notice on FSSAI for issuing organic certificate, logo
The Crop Care Federation of India (CCFI) recently issued a legal notice to the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) for issuing organic certificates and logos to companies caught cheating consumers.
In the notice, the federation alleged that the country’s apex food regulator let fake, wrongly-labelled and misbranded organic products deceive millions of people.
http://www.fnbnews.com/article/detnews.asp?articleid=36640§ionid=1
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