Lovely jubbly! Man trading as ‘Del Boy Pedro’ caught selling counterfeit goods
A man trading as ‘Del Boy Pedro’ on the internet has been caught selling counterfeit goods. Jonathon Nicholls, 24, admitted 13 trademark offences after trading standards officers from Merthyr Tydfil council discovered him trading as ‘Del Boy Pedro’ on Facebook during routine searches of social media sites.Justin Davies, prosecuting at Merthyr Crown Court, said that account had been set up in late September last year with buyers contacting Nicholls in personal messages to buy items he would then deliver.
http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/local-news/lovely-jubbly-man-trading-del-7758009
Lear MoreCorrections officer pleads guilty to smuggling pot, tobacco into prison
A corrections officer at the Coleman Federal Correctional Complex pleaded guilty to smuggling tobacco and marijuana into the prison, a U.S. attorney’s spokesman said. Jason Epstein, 29, of Orlando, had prisoners ask people outside Coleman to wire him money under pseudonyms, said William Daniels, a spokesman for U.S. Attorney A. Lee Bentley, III.
Court records show the smuggling began in April of 2012, and lasted until inmates told agents about it in 2014. Epstein was arrested in June and charged with receiving a bribe. His sentencing has not yet been scheduled, but he faces up to 15 years in prison, Daniels said in a statement.
Lear MoreIllicit cigarette study is blowing smoke, says council on smoking and health
One out of three cigarettes smoked in Hong Kong last year was illicit, costing the government more than HK$3.2 billion in lost tax revenue, a study by two overseas think tanks says. But the Hong Kong Council on Smoking and Health (COSH) says the results are “dubious”. The Illicit Tobacco Indicator study – conducted by UK-based Oxford Economics and the International Tax and Investment Center (ITIC) in the US – suggests that the city’s illicit cigarette consumption rate stood as high as 33.6 per cent of 1.8 billion cigarettes smoked in 2013, causing a loss of HK$3.2 billion in taxes. Of the 14 countries studied, Hong Kong had the third highest consumption rate, after Brunei and Malaysia, which ranked first and second, respectively.
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Venezuela holds 13 and seizes tonnes of food in smuggling crackdown
Venezuela says it has arrested 13 people and seized 136 tonnes of food since it launched an anti-smuggling operation on its border with Colombia.Last Monday, Venezuela deployed 17,000 troops along the border and began closing all the crossings at night.The one-month ban will be lifted in mid-September.Before the restrictions, up to 40% of goods Venezuela subsidises for its domestic market were being smuggled into Colombia, the authorities said.The goods were being sold illegally in Colombia at much higher prices.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-28860010
Lear MoreInterpol’s Michael Ellis: How counterfeiting is affecting all walks of life
Counterfeiters will fake anything that they can sell. Interpol has found everything from fake crash helmets that disintegrate when you fall off your bike to fake airbags that don’t go off in a crash and shampoo and body lotion made in factories where the only water supply is a disused toilet.
Fake alcohol caused the deaths of more than 40 people in the Czech Republic through methanol poisoning. When police raided the operation, they found materials that could have killed potentially thousands, and many more could have been seriously injured.
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Black market in tobacco booming in the streets of Sydney, with cheap Asian imports flooding the streets
IT IS emerging as one of the most lucrative illegal trades on the streets of Sydney’s southwest, but it’s not drug dealing or car boosting — it’s smuggling cigarettes. Last month, in seven raids across Fairfield and Bankstown, police seized more than 500,000 smuggled cigarettes and $1 million cash.
Detective Superintendent Murray Chapman, from the NSW Property Crime Squad, said illicit cigarettes were usually made in South-East Asian factories before being smuggled into Australia and sold in legitimate businesses. “We have been made aware of cases where fake cigarettes have been found to contain mould, faeces and even asbestos,” Supt Chapman said.
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HK Customs responds on enforcement against illicit cigarettes
Hong Kong (HKSAR) – Regarding a study on illicit tobacco in Hong Kong released today (September 9), the Customs and Excise Department, in response to media enquiries, said that Customs has been sustaining vigorous enforcement against illicit cigarette activities at all fronts, including smuggling, distribution, storage and peddling activities. With Customs’ stringent enforcement actions, illicit cigarette activities have reduced significantly. In the first eight months this year, public complaints recorded a drop by 16% as compared to the same period last year. A Customs spokesperson said that the strategy of enforcement at source remains to be effective with 15 significant (more than 500 000 sticks of illicit cigarettes) cases smashed till end of August this year. This was effective in preventing the smuggling of illicit tobacco into the territory.
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Alibaba Group signs anti-counterfeiting deal with CBBC
Alibaba Group has signed a deal with a British trade body that will help members of the UK organisation protect their IP across the China e-commerce company’s sites.Under the agreement, Alibaba will work with members of the China-Britain Business Council (CBBC) to remove product listings that allegedly infringe their rights, subject to takedown notices.The CBBC will also provide guidance to its members on using the existing notice-and-takedown systems provided by the Chinese company, whose sites include Alibaba.com and Taobao.com.
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Amazon not liable for copyright infringement, US court rules
A US court has rejected an appeal from the owner of sandybeachgifts.com, Sandy Routt, who claimed that online retailer Amazon is responsible for copyright infringement by its affiliate websites.
Routt claimed that some of the participating sites in the Amazon Associates programme, an arrangement between certain websites and the online retailer where they advertise Amazon products in return for fees for marketing, used photographs taken by her on their sites without permission.
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Trucker Caught with About $1.8M of Illegal Tobacco
MONTREAL, QC— A truck driver was arrested by the Canada Border Service Agency (CBSA) after 15,330 kg of tobacco was found in his tractor semi-trailer on August 20. The CBSA, Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) and the Sûreté du Québec stated they thought there was a smuggling risk with the truck when it pulled into the border. They referred the driver and his vehicle to a complete inspection and found the tobacco hidden behind boxes of fresh vegetables. “This operation is the result of combined efforts with our partners to address the problem of large-scale tobacco smuggling,” said Benoît Chiquette, Regional Director General, CBSA, Quebec Region. “Seizures of this magnitude remove significant quantities of illicit tobacco from the contraband market.” According to CBSA, one kg of loose tobacco has an estimated value of around $120. That means that a 15,000-kg load is worth about $1.8M on the street.
http://www.todaystrucking.com/trucker-caught-with-about-18m-of-illegal-tobacco
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