Author and Lecturer
I just returned from delivering a talk at PirateCon 2017 in Boston on an article to be published in Men’s Health Magazine, “The World’s Most Counterfeited Prescription Drug.” The drug is Viagra, which is purchased on mass through rogue Internet pharmacies and delivered through the mail. This talk coincided with a convention held earlier in Washington, D.C. at the National Press Club on the growing threat from imported pharmaceuticals (see YouTube video).
This is a really good video taken at Radio City Music Hall on 12/25/2016. Selling counterfeit apparel on the streets is always brisk at Christmas time. Fakes sold on the streets costs NYC upwards of $1 billion a year. A few years ago NYC proposed fining consumers who were caught buying fakes on the street (see video below). The law was never passed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVp-J6Re7Lc
The results of Operation Action against Counterfeit and Illicit Medicines (ACIM) were reviewed in January, 2017 in Paris by the International Institute of Research Against Counterfeit Medicines (IRACM) and the World Customs Organization (WCO). By any accounts, ACIM was a huge success and resulted in record seizures of 113 million illicit and dangerous pharmaceutical products, all of which took place during a two-week period in September, 2016.
The problem of counterfeit pharmaceuticals in the developing countries is huge. ACIM mobilized customs administrations in 16 African countries to inspect and identify pharmaceuticals and drugs posing a dangerous threat to the local populations in 16 African countries to inspect simultaneously, in the main ports on the continent, cargoes identified as likely to contain illicit or counterfeit pharmaceutical products. 243 containers were inspected, of which 150 contained fakes. Most treatments were: antimalarial drugs, anti-inflammatories, antibiotics, and analgesics, as well as gastro-intestinal medicines. Also seized were 13 million health supplements and 5,000 medical devices. The main countries of origin were China and India.
It’s the next big thing: selling used clothes online by consignment. Many used designer sneakers are being sold on consignment. No wonder sales of apparel in retail malls across the country are on the downswing.
Check out this Youtube video from fashionista Hayley Segar.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVMyKZ4Z7uE
Why donate clothes to the Goodwill when you can sell them online on sites like Poshmark and ThredUp, where some teens are making big $$$ and others are launching careers as fashion designers. Check out this Podcast from the WSJ.
Are online stores an avenue for counterfeit apparel? There’s no easy answer.
Sites like Poshmark have a prohibited items policy that includes counterfeit apparel
https://poshmark.com/prohibited_items_policy
Readers of my blog know about my association with IP investigator David Woods who I’ve interviewed many times for PI Magazine and who is the basis for my novel The Counterfeit Detective. That’s why I found this website about the Interpol’s International IP Crime Investigators College quite interesting.
Over 100 countries have visited the IIPCIC website since its launch and over 7000 law enforcement agencies have enrolled in the training.
Check out their website: http://www.iipcic.org/
IIPCIC is mandated to develop, coordinate and administer training programs to support international efforts to prevent, detect, investigate and prosecute transnational organized IP crime. The College will serve the needs of INTERPOL’s partner organizations and other key international stakeholders.
The mission of IIPCIC is to deliver leading edge training to enable investigators around the world to effectively combat current and emerging threats from transnational organized IP Crime.
The college is delivered on a multilingual platform that supports over 20 languages. The intellectual property crime courses are offered in the four INTERPOL official languages of English, Spanish, French and Arabic. Mandarin has recently been launched and Russian and a number of other languages will be launched shortly. Quite impressive! And a testimony to the growing threat of product counterfeiting.
You sometimes read or hear of how the theft of intellectual property can benefit creativity. A case study could be made of how a bootlegger, who got hold of the 1960s song Hanky Panky, helped launch Tommy James and the Shondells.
A local dance promoter found a vinyl copy of Hanky Panky in a used record bin and started playing it in Pittsburgh dance clubs. The audiences loved the song, prompting a bootlegger to copy and press a version of the song with a faster tempo that went on to sell an estimated 80,000 copies. Hanky Panky soon became the number one hit played by the Pittsburgh radio stations in early 1965.
Hanky Panky was originally recorded by Tommy James and the Shondells in Niles, Michigan for an indie record label called Snap Records that was owned by Jack Douglas, a local DJ at WNIL radio station in Niles.
Douglas was unable to promote the record nationally and moved on to other projects but he heard about the song’s popularity in Pittsburgh because his name and record label were always mentioned and, as a result, he received numerous calls. Billboard and other trade papers began listing Hanky Panky as a regional breakout hit in Pittsburgh.
Interestingly, Tommy James travelled to Pittsburgh and re-formed the Shondells, which had broken up by this time, to perform the song to sell-out crowds and from there the Shondells went on to rock and roll history with Crimson and Clover, Mony Mony, I Think We’re Alone Now, and many others.
The Super Bowl presents a major opportunity for the counterfeiting of sports apparel. This season was no exception.
On February 4th, the day before the Boston Patriots vs. the Atlanta Falcons faced off at Super Bowl LI, Woburn police and members of the National Football League executed a search warrant at a warehouse belonging to Chowdaheadz, a local online apparel company that sells Boston sports-themed merchandise. T -shirts, sweatshirts, hats, and allegedly counterfeit sports apparel were seized, along with business records, production material and equipment. The investigation began during the Christmas season from a tip that a kiosk in the South Shore Plaza in Braintree, Massachusetts, was selling counterfeit Boston Patriots sports apparel.
Uganda has struggled to adopt an anti-counterfeiting bill for many years with many members of Parliament remaining divided over the issue of counterfeit versus substandard products (see video). Yet, despite the delay, Fred Muwema, Director of Legal and Corporate Affairs, has established an Anti-Counterfeiting Network this week that uses agents from all sectors of government to investigate and remove counterfeit products in the local marketplace
While establishing the Anti-Counterfeiting Network’s offices in Kampala, the country’s capital, Muwema reassured everyone that it will not only make a difference in Uganda as well as Africa at large.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=scSa_vQzfzk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCh8LJb2qIs
Check out the videos (above and below). In the United States, cigarettes cost $8 to $10 a pack, making them a ripe target for counterfeiters. The cigarettes in question are Newport, and many of the fakes are supposedly coming from China. Then again, maybe the Newports are genuine. You be the judge.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGD6Num5Msk
Often called a “victimless crime,” this Youtube video from Complex Originals, examines the hidden costs—including terrorism and child labor—that profit from product counterfeiting. The analysis includes hidden camera interviews of street peddlers on New York City’s Canal Street in Chinatown.