Police bag gang for allegedly making fake luxury products
The suspects were rounded up on April 17 at 12 locations.
Material and workers at the factory.
More than 50 suspects have been arrested for allegedly producing and selling fake luxury bags, Shanghai police said on Sunday.
Police started their investigation in September last year after finding that a factory based in Dongguan city, Guangdong Province, was probably producing fake leather material with the logos of famous luxury brands.
Police said they received vital information when investigating a fake Louis Vuitton bag case in Fengxian District earlier last year.
The fake leather materials produced in this factory were sold to the suspects who operated factories in Guangzhou and Shaoguan cities, police said.
The fake bags were sold both in market shops and over the Internet at 10 percent of the price of the authentic bags to wholesalers, according to the police.
The suspects were rounded up on April 17 from 12 locations, with more than 13,000 fake bags and 600 rolls of fake leather material with logos seized.
Shanghai police said they have caught more than 130 suspects in over 110 intellectual property right cases so far this year which involved over 50 brands. The authentic counterparts of the fake products seized in those cases are estimated to be worth over 500 million yuan (US$70 million).
Fake Louis Vuitton bags and packaging.
Fake luxury bags.
Fakes on demand
Cao Yang, an official with the Shanghai economic crime police, said there are an increasing number of cases in which the suspects, especially those who produce fake wine, produce only on demand from wholesalers.
“The purpose is to reduce their inventory of fakes as much as possible so that if they get busted, they could get lighter sentences,” Cao said.
Recently 40 suspects have been caught for allegedly producing and selling drinks marked with such luxury brands as Hennessy and Martell.
The suspects from Shanghai and seven provinces were caught with over 40,000 bottles of fake luxury drink, police said.
A bottle of fake Martell brandy (left) seized by police, and an authentic bottle (right) which has an identification chip in the top of its cork.
