Suspects mass-producing fake luxury bags arrested
Shanghai police raid the factory in Dongguan in January.
The factory where the suspects produce fake luxury bags
Some parts and tools used to produce the fake bags
Four suspects have been arrested for alleged manufacture of fake luxury brand bags, Shanghai police said on Wednesday.
Since 2014, the gang has produced and sold over 100,000 fake bags whose authentic counterparts would be worth over 100 million yuan (US$15m), police said.
The suspects’ unregistered factory was located in Dongguan, Guangdong Province, and their wholesale buyers were based in Zhongshan , also in Gunagdong, Nantong in Jiangsu Province and Shanghai.
Police in Qingpu District started their investigation in November last year when found someone selling what were probably fake luxury bags through WeChat.
Police purchased a few bags which were identified by the brand companies as fakes.
The married couple that ran the WeChat shop called “IMM” were based in Shanghai and the bags they were selling were found to be delivered by a woman named Wu from Dongguan.
Wu sold the fake bags, whose authentic counterparts are worth 8,000 to 20,000 yuan, at 300 to 1,000 yuan to the wholesale buyers. The wholesalers then sold the bags to customers for 1,500 to 2,000 yuan.
The suspects once had a shop on taobao.com through which they stayed in touch with their buyers, and after a crackdown from the website, they moved to WeChat.
Police raided the gang in January, caught 32 suspects and seized about 4,000 items.
The rest of the suspects are on bail while investigation continues.
