News

Product aids fight against counterfeiting

Plastics Color Corp. has entered the anti-counterfeit market with a new line of particle taggants.  The Calumet City, Ill., firm said its Mi Batch taggants are compatible with a wide variety of resins to  impart a high level of security and verification for consumer products, electronics, medical products, aviation and automotive.  Plastics Color says counterfeiting is a multi-billion dollar threat globally.  “Mi Batch was developed as an extremely cost-effective anti-counterfeit measure enabling manufacturers and retailers to protect brand identity and ensure supply chain integrity,” explains Plastics Color vice president of business development Tim Workman.  The company’s taggants have a unique chemical and spectral signature for each customer. Taggant particles become an integral part of the plastic material or item. Detection equipment can read the signature to verify authenticity of the product.  Plastics Color says it can make the taggants in any volume. They can be added to a masterbatch to ensure supply chain integrity.

Multi-factor authentication market to reach $5.45 billion by 2017

The two-factor authentication market will touch $5.45 billion by the year 2017, predicts MarketsandMarkets. The report looks at the market by authentication type, application and geography and predicts a compound annual growth of 17.3%. Multi-factor authentication refers to user and employee authentication that uses two or more verifying authentication techniques – hardware token, one-time password (OTP), password/PIN, biometrics, etc. Multi-factor authentication has become an integral part of personal and enterprise security due to increase in unauthorized access, fraud, border intrusion and more.  To account for this, multi-factor authentication is being deployed at all the major security checkpoints at airports, commercial complexes, retail malls, banks, financial institutions and others. Multi-factor authentications value lies in its ability to provide accurate authentication along with a minimal margin of duplicity or error.

http://secureidnews.com/news-item/multi-factor-authentication-market-to-reach-5-45-billion-by-2017/?utm_source=ExpressPigeon&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Press+Monitor+Subscriber+%5B60%5D

Police crack diploma counterfeiting groups

Chinese police have cracked two major diploma counterfeiting groups and detained at least 21 suspects, said railway police on Friday. Shanghai railway police raided two locations involved in counterfeiting diplomas and detained 21 suspects in late July, said a statement from the railway police division of the Ministry of Public Security. Police confiscated more than 40,000 fake seals of government departments and other institutions, and more than 50,000 fake diplomas at the locations, the statement said. Last week, Chengdu railway police raided another counterfeiting location and seized about 2,700 fake diplomas and 3,190 fake seals following a lead from a train passenger using a fake identification card, it said.

http://www.china.org.cn/china/2013-08/23/content_29807500.htm

Anti-counterfeiting: customs brand registration

The global trade in counterfeit goods has reached staggering proportions, growing 10 000% over the past two decades, and resulting in a highly-profitable, illegal industry worth between R1.6 trillion and R4.8 trillion annually.  To put this in perspective, this amounts to roughly 8% of world trade. Unfortunately, South Africa has become a major target for counterfeiters, with counterfeit goods in excess of R600 million being seized since 1997.Although there is a widespread impression that counterfeiting is a victimless crime, this is far from the truth.  Apart from tax revenue lost, trade in counterfeit goods results in massive job losses, and erodes the market for genuine products.  Closer to home, the consumption of counterfeit goods poses a real danger to human health and safety, as counterfeiting expands beyond the traditional bounds of luxury goods, DVD’s, clothing and cigarettes, to children’s toys, automotive parts, food products, and pharmaceuticals. From a brand protection perspective, counterfeiting impacts detrimentally on reputation and goodwill, in addition to causing a loss in sales and profits.  Almost any conceivable product is fair game to counterfeiters, and the more popular and successful a brand becomes, the more appealing it becomes to counterfeiters.

http://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=4c777437-6a41-4c82-bf11-6f84f4bb7801&utm_source=ExpressPigeon&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Press+Monitor+Subscriber+%5B63%5D

Hotels, bars told to remove liquor bottle labels after use

PUNE: The excise department of Pune has directed over 100 restaurants and bars in the district to scrape off labels from used bottles of Indian Made Foreign Liquor (IMFL) or mark a cross on the label on each side of the used bottle to prevent them from being reused to sell spurious liquor.

The directive, which came after instances of bootlegging were reported in the state, will also involve excise inspectors making mandatory checks in five-star hotels twice a month to make sure all used imported foreign liquor bottles are smashed and not sold to scrap dealers. The excise inspectors were also instructed to bring the used bottles in front of them during the routine inspections at permit rooms, bars, clubs and five-star hotels. Five star hotels, where imported liquor is sold extensively, will in fact, have excise officials checking twice every month to make sure that imported liquor bottles are being smashed after use.

http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2013-08-15/pune/41413029_1_imported-liquor-cheap-liquor-indian-made-foreign-liquor

Over 6,000 arrested in Interpol fake-goods sweep

PARIS — More than 6,000 people around the world were arrested in a two-month anti-counterfeiting sweep that netted tens of millions of dollars worth of fake shampoo in China, phony cigarettes in Turkey and bogus booze in Chile, Interpol said Thursday. In all, the operations coordinated by the Lyon, France-based international police agency in May and June seized some 24 million fake goods worth nearly $133 million, Interpol said in a statement. The combined haul ranks among the largest operations ever conducted by the agency’s special anti-counterfeiting unit, according to its director, Michael Ellis. As part of the worldwide push against counterfeiting, the agency helped lead operations by local authorities in the Americas, Africa, Europe and, for the first time, in Asia. The Asian operation shut down 21 production sites operated by eight criminal syndicates making fake shampoo and toothpaste in southern China. More than 400 people were arrested in Thailand for hawking counterfeit clothing and DVDs, while in Vietnam police arrested an individual linked to $6 million worth of illicit electronic appliances. Ellis highlighted the significance of the Chinese police cooperation for the first time. “We reach out to various national police forces on a regional basis. This time the police in China joined the operation, with great effect,” he said.

http://www.azcentral.com/news/free/20130718interpol-counterfeit-goods-sweep-arrests-france.html

Feds: Counterfeit submarine parts shipped to Groton base

Groton — The U.S. Naval Submarine Base on at least three separate occasions received counterfeit semiconductors from Hong Kong or China, though it is unclear whether any of the components wound up on a nuclear submarine.According to the indictment this week of a military-components distributor who was charged on counts of conspiracy, fraud and trafficking, Peter Picone, 40, of Methuen, Mass., and unidentified co-conspirators shipped the counterfeit integrated circuits to the sub base between November 2011 and February 2012. At least two of the circuits were intended for active-duty nuclear submarines in Groton, though there was no indication in the indictment whether they actually had been used on board a sub. One was intended for an alarm panel, while another was to be used in a radio-transmission test, the indictment said.  “I have to buy China and risk fake parts to compete. … It’s my whole biz,” the indictment quotes Picone as saying in a 2008 instant message.  The indictment also tied Picone — who owns Epic International Electronics and once headed electronics distributor Tytronix Inc., both based in Massachusetts — to the shipment of other counterfeit products from Hong Kong or China to unidentified Connecticut customers. In addition, a defence contractor in Florida bought 33 integrated circuits from one of Picone’s companies to be used during repair work on an active-duty nuclear submarine’s secondary propulsion system, the indictment said.

http://theday.com/article/20130716/NWS09/130719772/1017

NHRC seeks report from health director on death due to ‘fake’ brain shunt

The National Human Rights Commission had sought an action-taken report from the director, health and family welfare, Chandigarh, into the death of Gurjot Kaur, a four-month-old girl who was fitted a “counterfeit” shunt during a brain surgery at the Post-Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER). The director is to comply within six weeks. Gurjot’s SAS Nagar-based family had approached the national panel headquartered at New Delhi via a complaint by city-based advocate and social activist Pankaj Chandgothia. It detailed how Gurjot had been operated upon on April 2, got a “counterfeit” shunt, and died on June 21 at the PGIMER. “With this, the parents lost their only child to medical malpractices at PGIMER and its chemists,” alleged Chandgothia. Going further, Chandgothia has alleged large-scale malpractices at the institute and chemists. In the complaint, “Thus, we have sought action against the PGIMER Director, Baby Care Chemists on the campus and the director of health services, Chandigarh.” The UT’s health department director and the PGIMER director “are also liable for criminal negligence… They have failed to monitor and regulate the sale of fake medical equipments and expired medicines”.