How eBay, Amazon and Alibaba Fuel the World’s Top Illegal Industry — the Counterfeit Products Market
Over the last year, Craig Crosby has bought more than 250 items on eBay. The 6-foot-3 ex-cop with bushy white hair and a white mustache — a cop’s mustache — keeps each item in its own Ziploc bag, carefully labeled as if evidence from a crime scene, because in a way it is. At least that’s how Crosby sees it. “This is now the largest criminal enterprise in the world,” Crosby says in a baritone drawl, sounding almost like John Wayne if he’d grown up in Reseda. “It actually is more profitable than illegal drug dealing.” All 250 items are counterfeits — counterfeit jeans, counterfeit watches, counterfeit respiratory masks, the kind you might wear if you had to remove asbestos.
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292 counterfeit domains seized by law enforcement
Europol, the European Union’s law enforcement agency, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Homeland security Investigations and law enforcement agencies from 19 countries have seized 292 web domains that were used for the sale of counterfeit goods, according to Europol. The counterfeit products included luxury items, as well as “sportswear, electronics, pharmaceuticals and pirated goods like movies and music,” the BBC reports.
The operation was part of a project called “In Our Sites (IOS) Transatlantic V.” The law enforcement groups have been receiving leads since August from various trademark holders.
http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2014/12/02/europol-seizes-22-counterfeit-domains/
Lear MoreCounterfeit Frozen toys seized from shop in Nottinghamshire
A haul of counterfeit dolls, umbrellas, watches, backpacks and blankets were seized by Nottinghamshire County Council.Hundreds of potentially dangerous Frozen toys and products have been seized from a toy shop in Nottinghamshire.A haul of counterfeit dolls, umbrellas, watches, backpacks and blankets were seized by Nottinghamshire County Council after concerns were raised that the fake goods could burst in to flames or strangle children.The Daily Mail reports that the Council found that the fancy dress costumes and pyjamas did not conform to flammability standards.
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Crime Commission Takes New Tactic on Cigarette Smuggling
In spite of recent stronger penalties, traffickers are still smuggling Virginia’s low-tax cigarettes to other states—especially to New York City, where demand for the Commonwealth’s cigarettes is soaring due to the city’s high excise taxes. Some estimates suggest that 21 percent of Virginia cigarettes end up in other states, where profits are so high that many criminals would rather sell tobacco than heroin. But the State Crime Commission is recommending a different tactic to deter the traffickers.
http://wvtf.org/post/crime-commission-takes-new-tactic-cigarette-smuggling
Lear MoreSmuggling opportunities abounded for inmates at city jail, gang leader testifies
The way Tavon White describes it, being sent to the Baltimore City Detention Center was no reason for Black Guerrilla Family gang members to stop hustling. Key to keeping the money flowing, however, was recruiting corrections officers to smuggle tobacco, marijuana, prescription pills and cell phones into the jail. The officers were also needed to transport the items from one section of the jail to the other, and to help tip inmates to looming “shakedowns.”
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Government collaboration needed to address counterfeiting
The Australian Government should work more closely with regulators and governments throughout the Asia Pacific, in an effort to address the challenges of global counterfeits. That’s the opinion of Mervyn Rea, National Customer Relationship Manager (Australia and NZ) and Head of Customer Management (Asia) for Zurich Risk Engineering.
Last week, Insurance Business reported the recently-released Zurich report, ‘Counterfeit products: new risks in global value chains’, detailing the rapid rise in the production and organisational quality of counterfeiting and the affects that has on commerical insurance.
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Online markets are source of counterfeit products, say experts
Say the genuineness of the products supplied by the online players has to be verified.
Questioning the genuineness of the products sold by the online retailers, apex industry chamber Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and industry (FICCI) has sought scrutiny of these items to check counterfeiting.
“Online markets are also source of distributing smuggling and counterfeiting products. The genuineness of the products supplied by the online players has to be verified. One cannot deny that they do not have counterfeit products,” Deep Chand, Advisor, FICCI CASCADE (Committee Against Smuggling and Counterfeiting Activities Destroying Economy) told media persons on the sidelines of a seminar on Curbing Counterfeiting and Smuggling – An Imperative for Indian Economy, here.
http://www.afaqs.com/news/story/42635_Online-markets-are-source-of-counterfeit-products-say-experts
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Why the $600 Bil Counterfeit Industry Is Still Horrible for Fashion
From Urban Outfitters copying the designs of independent artists to Zara passing off runway looks as its own to the counterfeit handbags for sale on the streets of New York and Los Angeles, authenticity in the fashion industry is questionable at best. There’s a lot to consider here: Why can American shoppers buy fake luxury items without facing penalty? If the counterfeit industry is an unregulated black market, why aren’t more consumers aware of where that money actually goes? Why are fast fashion brands allowed to steal concepts from big-name designers? Why is there no intellectual property protection for fashion, the way there is for art, film, and literature?
http://racked.com/archives/2014/12/01/counterfeit-fashion-goods-products-museum-exhibit.php
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Officials seize 292 domain names to protect consumers during holiday season
The holiday season is rife with online rip-offs. In a move to protect consumers, law enforcement officials have seized 292 domain names for sites that allegedly were selling counterfeit goods.
The sites were being used to illegally sell counterfeit merchandise including luxury goods, sportswear, electronics, pharmaceuticals and pirated goods like movies and music, Europol said Monday.
The European Union’s law enforcement agency coordinated the seizure with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the U.S. Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and 25 law enforcement agencies from 19 countries.
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Europol seizes 292 websites in counterfeit goods crackdown on Cyber Monday
An international operation led by Europol has seized the domain names of 292 websites that were selling counterfeit or pirated products.
The seizures are part of Europol’s In Our Sites project and involved 25 law enforcement agencies from 19 countries, including the UK, Spain, France and Denmark, with the assistance of the US Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Europol said that the action followed leads received in August from trademark holders about the infringing websites. The seized domain names now remain in the possession of the governments involved in the operations. The most popular domains proved to be websites selling counterfeit luxury goods, sportswear, electronics and pharmaceuticals, along with pirated music and films.
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