Counterfeit goods sales busted at swap shop
An undercover investigation in the sale of counterfeit goods with an actual retail value of over $400,000 at Old Salem Swap Shop has landed four people in jail. Undercover deputies with the Rockdale County Sheriff’s Department’s Narcotics and Vice Unit purchased items with labels such as Coach, Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Michael Coors, True Religion, Polo, Lacoste, Timberland and Calvin Klein on numerous occasions before search warrants were executed on April 25. Since that time, four people were either arrested or turned themselves in on charges of selling goods with forged o counterfeit trademarks. According to Sheriff’s Investigator Michael Camp, the value of the seized merchandise would be $409,705 if the items were authentic and sold at retail price. Arrested on one charge each of selling counterfeit goods were Odawinnie Gunter, 34, and Pauline Morine Ferguson, 50, both of Conyers; Suliman Sillah, 23, of Atlanta; and Mellannie Gibbs, age and address unknown. A warrant has also been issued for a fourth subject who has not yet been located.
Lear MoreUnlike India, China not helping Nigeria stop fake drugs
Unlike India, China is not assisting in the fight against counterfeit medicines even though the influx has been mainly from that country, Nigeria`s National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) says. “Comparative analysis has shown that China is not doing anything to help the Nigerian government in its attempt to control the import of counterfeit medicines, even though much of these medicines have been traced to China,” NAFDAC spokesman Abubakar Jimoh told IANS on the phone from Nigerian capital Abuja. On the other hand, the Indian government “has joined hands with the Nigerian authorities to fight the influx and has thus reduced the flow of such medicines from India,” Jimoh added. Nigeria has been faced with the influx of counterfeit medicines over the years and has tried several methods to overcome the scourge. Last year the government proposed a bill providing stiffer punishment for organisations and individuals who may be arrested for dealing in the manufacture and sale of counterfeit medicine. The government at the time wanted to use the bill to protect local manufacturers against inferior imports that were selling cheap on the market. It was proposed to provide support to three agencies – Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON), National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) and the Consumer Protection Council (CPC) – to link their activities and work in concert. The government at the time promised to support to the organisations in the enforcement of regulations in the control of fake products. It has been revealed that NAFDAC has been able to bring the prevalence rate of fake drugs down to six percent from the 16.7 percent over the past five years. The proposed bill, however, turned out to be much ado about nothing as there was no movement forward. Jimoh`s comments come to confirm an earlier statement by NAFDAC director general Paul Orhii that most fake, substandard and counterfeit drugs imported and openly sold on the Nigerian market were from China through smuggling with the connivance of some unscrupulous persons whose only interest is to make money.
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Fake Dr Dre headphones ‘one of most seized items’
Some 200,000 pairs have been taken by officers and customs at UK ports. The organisation said it was the first time it had seen the mass production of counterfeit headphones. “It’s a trend – Dr Dre is a leading headphone and that’s what counterfeiters will go after,” Trading Standards’ Tony Shore told Radio 4’s You and Yours. Beats by Dr Dre are available in six different models that cost between £120 and £500, however you and yours found sets on sale at a market in Cambridge for £15. Trading Standards said it had never seen a problem with counterfeit headphones prior to this particular brand being released. “They’re quite sophisticated as a counterfeit item,” Mr Shore said. “Somebody is using the brand to make money illegally, which takes money out of future products.” Consumers are advised to check the wiring of the headphones and quality of the ear padding to check if it is a fake. Other signs include the cable not being detachable from the headphone. Beats by Dre had no comment on the issue, but offered tips on how to spot a counterfeit including only buying from authorised dealers. You and Yours asked Brit award-winning record producer Steve Levine to compare the fakes with the genuine product. He noted the packaging was “about two thirds of the size…it’s very flimsy”. He added music fans were better off spending £15 on headphones without a big brand name for decent quality music, rather than buying a copy. “[The fakes] probably cost about £1 to make – they are such rubbish headphones.” There has been a huge growth in the UK headphone market with sales reaching an all-time high. In 2012 more than 11 million pairs were sold – five million more than in 2008. Global market researcher GFK predicts headphones sales are likely to grow further as MP3 players drop in value – meaning it could be the biggest single part of the audio market in Great Britain by the end of 2013.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-22469347
Lear MorePolice seize counterfeit Amway products
Police in Nanjing, in East China’s Jiangsu province, have seized 120,000 cartons of counterfeit Amway products worth more than 140 million yuan ($23 million), the biggest case since the US company entered the Chinese market in 1995. A report on the official website of People’s Daily, www.people.com.cn, said that nine sites were raided on April 2, with fake products seized and seven suspects arrested. Police then moved into seven provinces and destroyed various production and sales sites.
http://usa.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2013-05/09/content_16488654.htm
Lear MoreMan, 85, tried to sell fake luxury handbags in West Boca, deputies say
At 85, Anthony Jenerosa Corbo was still working —peddling more than $200,000 in knockoff handbags and accessories from his car, Palm Beach County deputies say. Corbo bought counterfeit versions of high-end purses, watches and other accessories in New York’s Chinatown, then tried to sell them as the real thing at a strip mall parking lot in West Boca, according to a Sheriff’s Office arrest report. With brands like Prada, Gucci, and Louis Vuitton, among others stuffed into his 2012 Toyota Scion, Corbo opened for business at 6 p.m. on April 24 on West Palmetto Park Road west of Powerline Road, deputies said. His freelance sales venture was short-lived, however. The operation unraveled about an hour later when an anonymous tipster approached a sheriff’s deputy on a bike patrol in the area. The tipster said something seemed suspicious about the elderly man trying to sell merchandise from his car.
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PharmaSecure goes mobile in battle against fake drugs
Counterfeit drugs affected people in 124 countries in 2011. Among them was India, where 20% of the drugs on the market are fake, according to the World Health Organisation. It’s a global war, hitting the developing world hard, says thePharmaceutical Security Institute, a not-for-profit network of the security divisions of 25 big pharma companies. Counterfeit drugs, which are also referred to as substitute or falsified drugs, are a $75bn-200bn marketaccording to estimates by Deloitte. Roger Bate, an economist at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington DC, calculates that at least 100,000 people, mainly in poor countries, die annually from fake drugs. Asia has the most confiscations, but data – the bulk of which is withheld by pharma companies and governments – is lacking and statistics are estimated. However, a 29-year-old from New Hampshire has decided to take on this battle from his office in a clocktower building in Gurgaon, in the Indian state of Haryana. Nathan Sigworth and a fellow Dartmouth College graduate, N Taylor Thompson, who has since left, foundedPharmaSecure in 2007. Sigworth is now chief executive of the company, which is based in Gurgaon and Lebanon, New Hampshire, and prints unique codes on medicines to enable consumers to verify their validity and potency using their phones. PharmaSecure is not the only company providing medical authentications. Sproxil and mPedigree are also using mobile technology to authenticate drugs, but do not operate on the same scale as PharmaSecure, which will soon be operating beyond India and has produced more than 500bn coded packages. Up to 2m packages are coded every day, says Sigworth. “Even though we’re churning out so many meds, we are still only saturating 5% of the Indian market. We are now working hard to make this scale,” he says. That means integrating with pharmaceuticals. It’s merely a matter of time, says Sigworth; pharma companies that previously printed codes on only three of their 17 medicines are now authenticating all of them. Sigworth began digging into healthcare as a college student, volunteering in hospitals in rural India. “That’s where I saw how cheap human labour is. In some cases, patients would not be given injections because they could just be monitored instead by staff to make sure their condition did not worsen.
“http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/2013/may/09/source-code-pharmasecure-fake-drugs
Lear MoreFake mineral water floods city market
With summer round the corner, it’s soon going to be business time for the water mafia that controls the supply and distribution network of bottled water. As per industry estimates, almost 50% of the total water supplied in the name of ‘mineral’ or ‘RO-purified’ water in Gurgaon happens to be spurious. Bottled in highly unhygienic conditions in hutments or one-room establishments, with no water purifier machines, in and around slum dwellings, residents pay Rs. 75 for a 20-litre can of tap water. According to sources, there is a daily demand of 30,000 water jars in Gurgaon and 50% of it is met by unregulated and unauthorised suppliers. During peak summers, the demand touches 50,000 jars per day and the mafia would continue to rule the roost, said a distributor of a multi-national water company on condition of anonymity. Gurgaon civil surgeon Dr Praveen Garg said, “We are aware of the issue and have plans to check illegally-run water purifier plants and will soon assign teams to check compliance with ISI norms. A license process will be introduced soon. Registration of units with the health department would become mandatory and ISI certification would be top priority. Strict action will be taken against the guilty.” According to norms, a water plant should be spread over at least 1,500 square yard area and should have facilities like thermal sheet roof, air conditioned microbiology lab, cylinder room, two laboratories to test water, a special room to keep bottles, stainless steel water pipes and a water storage tank. “People are at risk of respiratory, kidney and digestive health diseases due to consumption of non-treated water being supplied by unauthorised water plants. There are around 40 illegal plants located in Gurgaon and surrounding areas,” said Dr Satish Yadav, an expert who was written the book ‘Water – Problem and its Management’. Gurgaon police commissioner KK Sindhu, meanwhile, promised strict action. “We will soon conduct raids and anyone found supplying fake water would be punished. We cannot compromise on health issues and water is a necessity. Anyone dealing in the illegal water business would not be spared. We will check all dealers, distributors, plants and shopkeepers. Samples would be collected in the coming week,” he said.
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Queen’s speech: selling counterfeit goods to be made criminal offence
Stealing registered designs and selling counterfeit products for profit will become a criminal offence punishable by up to 10 years in prison, the government’s Intellectual Property Office (IPO) has announced. The measure, confirmed in the Queen’s speech, will provide designers of cars, smart phones, furniture, computers and other manufactured items with the same level of protection that prohibits the distribution of pirated DVDs and films. According to the brief outline given to parliament, the bill in which the measure will appear is intended to “make it easier for businesses to protect their intellectual property”. The changes come in response to the Hargreaves review of intellectual property rights, which was commissioned by the prime minister and published in 2011. The design industry in the UK is estimated to be worth at least £35.5bn a year. The new sanctions, it is proposed, will cover only the deliberate copying, importing or marketing of designs for commercial gain that have been formally registered with either UK or EU authorities. Such privileged, registered status usually lasts for up to 25 years. The IPO report describes the change as “a significant deterrent effect against deliberate copying that current civil sanctions do not supply”. At present firms have to pursue a civil action against those they allege have infringed their patent rights. The report adds: “The introduction of criminal sanctions for the counterfeiting and piracy of copyright protected [DVDs and films] provides a precedent.” Those found guilty of pirating copyrighted DVDs and films for commercial gain face up to 10 years in prison. A similar maximum sentence level will apply to those deliberately infringing design patents. The report argues that a fake iPhone steals the Apple design “as much as it does the trademark and any copyright existing in applications stored on it. Extending criminal sanctions to designs will reflect the ‘suite’ of theft that has occurred and forms a necessary weapon in the armoury of enforcement authorities.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/law/2013/may/08/counterfeit-goods-criminal-offence
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Source code: PharmaSecure goes mobile in battle against fake drugs
Counterfeit drugs affected people in 124 countries in 2011. Among them was India, where 20% of the drugs on the market are fake, according to the World Health Organisation. It’s a global war, hitting the developing world hard, says the Pharmaceutical, a not-for-profit network of the security divisions of 25 big pharma companies. Counterfeit drugs, which are also referred to as substitute or falsified drugs, are a $75bn-200bn market according to estimates by Deloitte. Roger Bate, an economist at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington DC, calculates that at least 100,000 people, mainly in poor countries, die annually from fake drugs. Asia has the most confiscations, but data – the bulk of which is withheld by pharma companies and governments – is lacking and statistics are estimated. However, a 29-year-old from New Hampshire has decided to take on this battle from his office in a clock tower building in Gurgaon, in the Indian state of Haryana. Nathan Sigworth and a fellow Dartmouth College graduate, N Taylor Thompson, who has since left, founded PharmaSecure in 2007. Sigworth is now chief executive of the company, which is based in Gurgaon and Lebanon, New Hampshire, and prints unique codes on medicines to enable consumers to verify their validity and potency using their phones. PharmaSecure is not the only company providing medical authentications. Sproxil and Pedigree are also using mobile technology to authenticate drugs, but do not operate on the same scale as PharmaSecure, which will soon be operating beyond India and has produced more than 500bn coded packages. Up to 2m packages are coded every day, says Sigworth.
“Even though we’re churning out so many meds, we are still only saturating 5% of the Indian market. We are now working hard to make this scale,” he says. That means integrating with pharmaceuticals. It’s merely a matter of time, says Sigworth; pharma companies that previously printed codes on only three of their 17 medicines are now authenticating all of them.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/2013/may/09/source-code-pharmasecure-fake-drugs
Lear MoreFake mineral water floods city market
With summer round the corner, it’s soon going to be business time for the water mafia that controls the supply and distribution network of bottled water. As per industry estimates, almost 50% of the total water supplied in the name of ‘mineral’ or ‘RO-purified’ water in Gurgaon happens to be spurious. Bottled in highly unhygienic conditions in hutments or one-room establishments, with no water purifier machines, in and around slum dwellings, residents pay Rs. 75 for a 20-litre can of tap water. According to sources, there is a daily demand of 30,000 water jars in Gurgaon and 50% of it is met by unregulated and unauthorised suppliers. During peak summers, the demand touches 50,000 jars per day and the mafia would continue to rule the roost, said a distributor of a multi-national water company on condition of anonymity. Gurgaon civil surgeon Dr Praveen Garg said, “We are aware of the issue and have plans to check illegally-run water purifier plants and will soon assign teams to check compliance with ISI norms. A license process will be introduced soon. Registration of units with the health department would become mandatory and ISI certification would be top priority. Strict action will be taken against the guilty.” According to norms, a water plant should be spread over at least 1,500 square yard area and should have facilities like thermal sheet roof, air conditioned microbiology lab, cylinder room, two laboratories to test water, a special room to keep bottles, stainless steel water pipes and a water storage tank. “People are at risk of respiratory, kidney and digestive health diseases due to consumption of non-treated water being supplied by unauthorised water plants. There are around 40 illegal plants located in Gurgaon and surrounding areas,” said Dr Satish Yadav, an expert who was written the book ‘Water – Problem and its Management’. Gurgaon police commissioner KK Sindhu, meanwhile, promised strict action. “We will soon conduct raids and anyone found supplying fake water would be punished. We cannot compromise on health issues and water is a necessity.
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