Amazon Helps Disrupt Three Major Counterfeit Networks, Protecting Customers Worldwide from Fake Goods
Joint efforts with law enforcement resulted in the recovery of more than 240,000 counterfeit items in China, including bogus luxury products, sports apparel, and automobile components infringing on BMW, Hugo Boss, Lacoste, Under Armour, and other brands.
Business Wire – Seattle Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) said that its Counterfeit Crimes Unit had helped local Public Security Bureaus (PSBs) in China identify and shut down three counterfeiting enterprises (CCU). More than 240,000 fake goods were confiscated by law enforcement in the provinces of Jiangxi and Guangdong. The products were knockoffs of high-end, high-performance, and automotive names. The seizure stopped the phony goods from being sold elsewhere in the supply chain or reaching Amazon customers. These Amazon-based intelligence-based seizures of counterfeit items come after related England and U.S. law enforcement actions in California and New Jersey.
“Our efforts to identify and dismantle counterfeit organizations are working,” stated Kebharu Smith, director of the Amazon Counterfeit Crimes Unit and assistant general counsel. “We appreciate law enforcement acting on our referrals and thoroughly pursuing these cases. These outcomes protect Amazon customers, disrupt the counterfeit supply chain, and halt their illicit proceeds.”
Three significant counterfeit operations and their upstream suppliers were successfully identified and shut down as a result of information and intelligence provided to local authorities by Amazon’s CCU, including the locations of warehouses and production sites. Local PSBs have taken custody of the primary suspects pending additional investigation. Listings that were infringing but we’re connected to these cases have been removed.
Following a search of the facilities, law enforcement seized more than 130,000 fake car accessories and fake brand labels that violated the intellectual property of numerous brands, including BMW, Porsche, and General Motors; nearly 80,000 fake luxury goods; and more than 30,000 fake pieces of clothing and fake brand labels that, among other brands, violated the intellectual property of Hugo Boss, Puma, and Under Armour. The more than 3 million counterfeit products that Amazon discovered, confiscated, and properly disposed of last year, including counterfeits that were shipped to Amazon’s fulfillment centers in an unsuccessful attempt to sell to Amazon consumers, are now being added by this current initiative.
Amazon has also worked with regional PSBs in China on operations involving criminals who unlawfully acquired personal identification documents and company licenses in an effort to set up phony Amazon seller accounts. 84 people were consequently apprehended. More than 2.5 million nefarious individuals attempted to open new selling accounts on Amazon last year, but Amazon prevented them before they could post a single item for sale.
As part of its global efforts to combat counterfeiters, Amazon has filed lawsuits in collaboration with a number of well-known companies, including Cartier, GE Appliances, WWE, Salvatore Ferragamo, and FELCO. Amazon’s CCU regularly discovers new strategies that counterfeiters use to try to trick customers and dodge the law through its partnerships with companies of all sizes. By utilizing that information, the CCU helps law enforcement find criminals. Over 600 criminals were sued or reported for investigation by the CCU in 2021 in the US, UK, EU, and China.
Click here for more details on how Amazon’s capabilities defend brands and combat counterfeiters.
