News

Tobacco Firms Step Up Fight Against Cigarette Smuggling

Labs Examine Fake Smokes; Critics Say Industry Turns Blind Eye to Smuggling of Real Cigarettes

SOUTHAMPTON, England—At a network of high-tech laboratories here, vast machines puff away on uspect cigarettes and electron microscopes peer at packaging, all to fight the flourishing scourge of global tobacco smuggling. Workers at British American Tobacco PLC’s sprawling campus, 75 miles southwest of London, analyze hundreds of thousands of seized cigarettes each year, attempting to keep up with counterfeiters’ increasingly.

India Ranks Third for Counterfeit Goods Seized In US: Report

WASHINGTON:  China remains the primary source for counterfeit and pirated goods seized in the United States, an official report has said. In the year 2013, Chinese counterfeit and pirated goods seized in the U.S. accounted for a total value of $1.1 billion, representing 68 percent of all such goods seizures by the Customs and Border Protection, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security said in its annual report.  China was closely followed by counterfeit and pirated goods from Hong Kong, which accounted for 25 percent of the total goods seized. China and Hong Kong was followed by India with a distant third position accounting for three percent of the total goods seized, the report said.The number of intellectual property right (IPR) seizures increased nearly seven percent from 22,848 in fiscal 2012 to 24,361 in fiscal 2013.The MSRP of seized goods increased from $1.26 billion in FY 2012 to $1.74 billion in FY 2013

http://www.siliconindia.com/news/business/India-Ranks-Third-for-Counterfeit-Goods-Seized-In-US-Report-nid-163438-cid-3.html

Nigeria: Investigation – How Multibillion Naira Illicit Tobacco Trade Thrives

Officials say fake cigarettes are huge public problems to Nigeria, heightening the existing public health concern posed by growing but uncontrolled tobacco market in Nigeria. A 2005 study by the World Health Organization, WHO, estimated that more than 30 per cent of cigarettes smoked in Nigeria are smuggled. A more recent (2012) publication by the World Custom Journal claimed the volume have dropped to less than 10 percent. A Global Adult Tobacco survey on Nigeria estimates that Nigeria is home to 4.5 million smoking adults who expose 27 million others to harmful secondhand smoke. On the whole, Nigerians spend an average of N89.5 billion yearly on tobacco, most of which are illicitly traded and smuggled into the country.

http://allafrica.com/stories/201403210376.html

Amazon, Dangdang pull plug on fake stores

E-commerce companies Amazon and Dangdang said yesterday they have shut down several online retailers accused of selling counterfeit cosmetics via their platforms. According to a consumer affairs report shown on China Central Television on Wednesday, the stores were offering famous name brands at hugely discounted prices. In one case, the Meihanmeizhuang Cosmetics Store said the products it sold via Dangdang were sourced from a wholesale market in Beijing. The manager of the online store, which operated from a residential complex in Beijing’s Fangshan District, said he sold about 2,000 cosmetic products from 10 brands via Dangdang, and sent out goods worth more than 100,000 yuan (US$16,100) every day. The program showed the store’s warehouse packed with items purportedly made by Estee Lauder, Calvin Klein, Versace, Chanel and Shiseido.

http://www.ecns.cn/business/2014/03-21/105873.shtml

KPDNKK to take stern action against F1 counterfeit goods trader and dealers

PUTRAJAYA: The Domestic Trade, Cooperatives and Consumerism (KPDNKK) ministry will take stern action against traders and dealers found selling Formula One (F1) related counterfeit goods. Its Enforcement Division director Roslan Mahayuddin said the sellers will be dragged to court and could face imprisonment unlike in previous years where sellers were only fined for selling pirated goods.

Greaves Cotton in effort to curb fake auto parts

Greaves Cotton Limited, a manufacturer of diesel auto engines, has embarked on an initiative to curb the growing sale of spurious auto parts. The company is conducting nationwide raids to expose the increasing spurious parts business. The products seized from just three hubs in north India stood at Rs 2 crore. The total market for auto engines related spurious parts is approximately Rs 400 crore. Some of the fake products unearthed by the enforcement team are camp folleniers, rockers, bearings, rocker arms, ring sets, pistons, cam shafts, connecting rods, feed pumps, ring sets, and push rods. The enforcement team consisting of the Indian Police and Greaves Cotton’s legal team have been working closely to identity both manufacturing units and selling outlets and locations of counterfeit spares across major cities and trade hubs in India.

Greaves Cotton in effort to curb fake auto parts

Amazon China Unit Closes Vendor After Report of Fake Cosmetics

The China unit of Amazon.com Inc.  (AMZN:US), the world’s largest e-commerce company, closed a third-party online store after state media reported that fake cosmetics were being sold.  The shutdown was in response to customer complaints and the company will immediately close any stores selling fakes, Amazon’s China unit said in a posting on its verified microblog yesterday. China Central Television said on March 19 the company was among operators with counterfeit or questionable products for sale.  Amazon and rival Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. have adopted tougher management of fake products on their websites in China as the government pledges to crack down on breaches of intellectual property rights. The world’s most populous nation accounts for more than half of international trade in counterfeit goods, according to Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development estimates. Authorities arrested 59,000 people and seized more than 9,000 tons of fake and shoddy products last year in cases worth 172.9 billion yuan, a Ministry of Public Security official said Jan. 21. China is host to a number of markets known for “prominent and extensive availability of counterfeit merchandise,” the U.S. Trade Representative said in a February report. It cited Beijing’s Silk Market as an example.

Smuggled Cigarettes In Mexico

We’ve reported extensively on the fierce jostling for supremacy in Belize’s export cigarette market. It is a huge multi-million dollar enterprise, selling – or smuggling – cigarettes from Asia, mostly China, out of the Free Zone sin the North and West and getting them into Mexico. Well tonight Mexico is reporting a major bust with contraband cigarettes from Belize. A Mexican newspaper reports that on 14 March, authorities seized more than 14 million contraband cigarettes, the largest seizure on over a year. They intercepted the cigarettes in a trailer containing 402 thousand cartons of cigarettes. The brands are Bronco, D & J, Royal, Gold Seal Supreme manufactured in Vietnam, India, Paraguay, China and Canada. The vehicle operator, 42 year old Juan Ramirez Sanchez, submitted false invoices for air conditioners – but only cigarettes were inside. News reports say they were smuggled into Mexico through the border with Belize.

Fake phone accessories of popular brand seized

Coimbatore: Video Piracy Cell has seized fake phone accessories and products, being stored and sold under a popular brand, worth Rs 43 lakh from some shops in the city and arrested four persons in this connection. he Cell along with Enforcers of Intellectual Property Rights carried out raids in the in Gandhipuram on March 15, and seized large number of fake panels, adapters, battery, flip covers and pouches that were being sold under the brand name of Samsung, an official release said here today. Owners of the shops were arrested and cases under various section registered against them, it said.