Nine sentenced in knock-off Lego toy case
A Lego product (left) and a Lepin product.
Nine people associated with Lepin, a brand infringing the copyright of Lego toys, were found guilty and sentenced, the Shanghai No. 3 People’s Intermediate Court announced on Wednesday.
The principal offender, surnamed Li, was sentenced to six years in jail with fines of 90 million yuan (US$13.18 million). The other eight were sentenced up to four and a half years, and slapped with fines as high as 800,000 yuan, the court said.
Over 630 individual Lego products and toy sets were copied and sold by Lepin, the court said.
Between 2015 and last year, Li instigated other people to buy and research Lego products. They established a toy factory and started selling knock-off Lego products in 2017, the court said.
According to an investigation, about 4.25 million fake products were sold and nearly 604,000 products were found at Lepin’s warehouse.
Li was caught by police on April 22 last year in Shenzhen City in Guangdong Province. Other suspects gave themselves up to police between May and August in 2019.
The court said that other people related to the case haven't been investigated or apprehended yet. Further investigations are underway.
