Out-Law / Your Daily Need-To-Know

EU and Asian nations conduct counterfeits raid on shipping containers

01 Feb 2010, 4:11 pm

An anti-counterfeiting operation co-ordinated between the EU and 13 Asian countries has resulted in the impounding of hundreds of thousands of fake consumer goods and millions of packets of cigarettes.

The European Union's anti-fraud office OLAF and customs officials from the 13 Asian countries put shipping containers on their way from Asia to the EU under surveillance and chose 346 containers for inspection, suspecting that they contained counterfeit goods.

Fake goods were found in 30 of those containers and 89 individuals or companies were identified as being involved in criminal organisations, according to a statement from the European Commission. The counterfeiting infringed 20 trade marks, it said.

The raid uncovered 65 million cigarettes and 369,000 other fake goods. Over 6,000 pieces of Disney-branded pieces of craft materials and jewellery were found, as well as over 5,000 Disney-branded picture frames.

The raid uncovered 285,000 pieces of Hello Kitty merchandise, including rucksacks, wallets and clippers. Around 45,000 pairs of fake Nike trainers shoes were found spread out over several consignments, as well as counterfeit Hasbro, Marvel, Disney and Ford toys and Burberry hats and clothing.

The Commission said that the operation involved all the countries involved making use of IT and communications technologies for the first time.

"During the operation, all participating countries successfully used a specific IT communication tool for the real-time exchange of information and intelligence," said a Commission statement. "It was also the first time that OLAF deployed the secure internet access to its communication tool (the Anti-Fraud Information System) for the 13 Asian countries."

The activity was co-ordinated through the Asia-Europe Meeting, which has 16 Asian members. they are Brunei, Cambodia, China, India Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Laos, Malaysia, Mongolia, Myanmar, Pakistan, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam.

Brunei and India did not take part for logistical reasons, and China did not participate in the raids because it told the EU that action on the infringement intellectual property rights should be conducted via a specific EU-China agreement on intellectual property, the Commission said.

The raids took place in September and October last year but are only being announced now because the authorities were following up leads on criminal organisations that emerged from the raids, the Commission said. The raid was code-named Diabolo II after Diabolo I, a joint customs operation in 2007 that the Commission said had been a success.