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Chinese police seize illegal Louis Vuitton fakes 'worth 1 billion yuan'
Crime ring in Guangzhou sold to overseas customers and high-end mainland malls
PUBLISHED : Friday, 19 September, 2014, 2:14pm
UPDATED : Friday, 19 September, 2014, 2:19pm
Alice Yan [email protected]
A woman shops in a Louis Vuitton store in downtown Shanghai. Photo: Reuters
Guangzhou police have cracked a crime network that made and sold counterfeit Louis Vuitton products, confiscating a haul of knock-offs potentially worth 1 billion yuan (HK$1.26 billion).
The goods, which were made in a way that only specialists could tell they were fakes, were sold in high-end mainland shopping malls and sold abroad via a website, China Business News reports. If sold at prices like the originals, the cache is worth much money.
The case is the latest in a string of luxury goods copyright infringements over the past few years in a country – the world’s second-larges economy – where some consumers are increasingly developing a taste for the finer things.
In June, police in Guangzhou arrested 14 suspects and the ring’s six underground workshops were shut down. More than 11,000 bags and suitcases carrying the “LV” logo were seized at their factories and storage houses, along with 494 rolls of semi-manufactured LV-branded leather products that had a street value of 1 billion yuan.
Police also found 27 leather-producing machines and 30 million pieces of LV logos.
The suspects were found to have launched a website by imitating French fashion house Louis Vuitton’s website and used it to target overseas consumers.
According to local police, factories making counterfeit luxury leather goods are common in Guangzhou’s Baiyun and Huadu districts as well as in Dongguan. They were made delicately and came along with anti-fake certificates and an invoice to deceive clients. Only experts can point out they were fakes.
A man who was once involved in the bootleg luxury bag business told the newspaper that his products looked genuine because he is a VIP customer of those luxury brands and can buy the new-arrival goods at first time. Then he deconstructed the bags and outsourced the production to leather factories. His products were much cheaper than the genuine goods.
The China Luxury Market Report by the Shanghai-based Fortune Character Institute showed that Chinese consumers last year bought luxury items overseas at a combined value of US$74 billion, higher than their consumption abroad in the same category in 2011, or US$50 billion.
The report said many people who are keen on luxury products but cannot afford it will tend to buy high-quality copies along with originals.
Last month a counterfeit luxury watches syndicate was busted in the Luohu district of Shenzhen, with 2,600 items seized that could be sold at 5 million yuan at the prices of genuine ones. Police found they provided a complete set of fake packs, certificate and invoice, the Shenzhen Special Zone News reports.
In another case Beijing police arrested a man and his mother in September of last year for selling on the website fake bags that copied several big brands. They earned 200,000 yuan from their operation over two years, xinhuanet.com reports.
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