UK: Fashion and perfume counterfeiter convicted
At the end of March, a defendant pleaded guilty to 38 counts of distributing articles infringing trademarks at Manchester Crown Court. The 43-year-old man had been selling counterfeit designer sportswear, trainers, jewelry, and perfume from a store in Manchester. He was finally sentenced on 10 May to a 12-month community order and must also complete 100 hours of unpaid work.
The sentence was based on a case from 2021: After a sporting goods brand had noticed unauthorized trade of its items in the store of the now convicted man, the case was handed over to the Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit (PIPCU) of the City of London Police. Subsequently, PIPCU officers carried out a raid in August 2021, seizing around 45,000 counterfeit items with an estimated value of over 116,000 pounds (approx. 136,000 euros) as well as around 12,000 pounds (approx. 14,000 euros) in cash.
According to the authorities, laboratory tests on counterfeit perfumes previously confiscated by the PIPCU had shown that they could also contain harmful or unhygienic ingredients – including cyanide or human urine, for example. A current communications campaign by the UK IPO (Intellectual Property Office of the United Kingdom) aims to draw attention to such circumstances in the production of counterfeits, in order to deter people from buying fakes.
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Source:
City of London Police
Article in cooperation with the Anti-Piracy Analyst
