Another cross-border seller was arrested...

Counterfeit goods are rampant. Some sellers make a fortune by selling counterfeit goods, while others face imprisonment for selling counterfeit goods.

Cross-border seller in Henan arrested for selling counterfeit goods

Recently, news came out that a cross-border seller in Henan was arrested for selling counterfeit products of Underarmour and FILA !

It is understood that the seller previously sold counterfeit brand products on domestic TB and PinDD platforms, and was occasionally closed down by the platforms. After making some money on domestic platforms, he started to engage in cross-border e-commerce at the beginning of this year.

The reason for being caught selling counterfeit goods this time was that the customs found this batch of counterfeit Underarmour and FILA products during the inspection process , and then arrested all the upstream and downstream counterfeit personnel in one fell swoop.

The latest development in the case is that since the counterfeit products seized this time are not of high value, the seller has been released on bail pending trial.

What are counterfeit brand products? In fact, counterfeit brands are what many people often call OEM. Generally speaking, unscrupulous sellers will directly sell counterfeit goods without brand authorization. And these OEM products are usually branded after big brands, making high profits from them.

After illegal sellers have accumulated a certain amount of capital by selling private-label products, some of them will choose to obtain formal brand authorization. However, when selling products, they will mix genuine and fake products together, making it difficult for consumers to distinguish the real from the fake.

In order to gain immediate benefits, many sellers will choose to take risks and sell counterfeit products.

Sellers need to be aware that common counterfeit violations include selling unauthorized genuine products, selling products with other brands’ logos printed on them, selling products using high-end imitations of big-name brand names, selling products that imitate the appearance of other brands, or directly using other brands’ trademarks in the listing , or falsifying the product’s origin.

Amazon cracks down on sellers of counterfeit goods

The endless emergence of counterfeit goods has seriously disrupted the market order. E-commerce platforms such as Amazon are accelerating their crackdown on counterfeit and shoddy goods.

Recently, Amazon and its Counterfeit Crime Unit ( CCU) announced that they have filed a lawsuit against two counterfeit sellers , Kamryn Russell, Ashley Hawat and their accomplices.

Amazon said the two sellers promoted counterfeit luxury goods by posting hidden links on their social media and then directed fans to Amazon stores. The store seemed to be full of generic product lists, but in fact, they were selling counterfeits of brand-name bags, jewelry and accessories. In order to avoid being discovered by Amazon and brand owners, Russell and Hawat even deliberately mosaiced the product logos .

What is even more surprising is that Russell and Hawat directly told their fans on their social media accounts that the products they were selling were fakes, and they often reminded and urged their fans to place orders before Amazon removed these links.

Amazon will crack down on this kind of blatant sale of counterfeit goods, and these illegal sellers will face severe penalties.

Counterfeit goods are rampant in the cross-border market, and the amount involved is huge!

Since the beginning of this year, sellers have frequently been punished by law for selling counterfeit goods in overseas markets.

In March this year , eight counterfeit sellers were arrested in Putian City, Fujian Province, and the amount involved reached over 100 million yuan!

The People's Procuratorate of Chengxiang District, Putian City, filed a public prosecution against the defendant Chen and eight others for the crime of suspected sale of counterfeit registered trademarks .

It is understood that since February 2018, these eight illegal sellers have been operating cross-border studios specializing in selling counterfeit goods, and at the same time renting suites as warehouses to store counterfeit brand headphones and other products.

The relevant departments found that the defendant Chen and others were shareholders of the cross-border studio. Their profit model was to set up their own websites and online stores, and then open accounts on a well-known international e-commerce platform to attract overseas consumers to shop. At the same time, they also registered a large number of international payment platform accounts under other people's names and bound them to their own websites for overseas currency collection , and then converted these funds into RMB and remitted them to the shareholders' personal accounts.

According to investigations by relevant departments, the products involved in this case are all counterfeit brand products. Since the defendant established a cross-border studio, the total amount of counterfeit products sold has reached over 100 million yuan.

Canon has always been very aware of the protection of intellectual property rights, especially keeping a close eye on major e-commerce platforms .

In May of this year , Amazon and Canon Inc. filed a joint lawsuit against a group of unscrupulous sellers who attempted to advertise, promote and sell Canon camera batteries and chargers in Amazon stores.

After confirming that the products in question were counterfeit, Amazon took swift action to close 29 seller accounts operated by these unscrupulous sellers .

If the case involving counterfeit sellers is serious, they will not only face imprisonment but also huge fines.

In June of this year, an Amazon seller was sentenced to four to six and a half years in prison and fined $15 million for selling counterfeit Cisco products.

It is understood that the defendant Aksoy has been engaged in large-scale fraud and counterfeit sales activities from 2013 to 2022 .

The seller conspired with suppliers in Hong Kong, China , to import counterfeit and modified Cisco equipment and then misrepresented them to consumers as genuine brand products. Aksoy imported and then resold tens of thousands of counterfeit Cisco equipment, with a total value of more than $1 billion if converted into genuine products .

The case has now been closed, with the defendant Aksoy reaching a plea agreement with prosecutors . Aksoy was sentenced to four to six and a half years in prison and a $15 million fine.

As a platform that highly protects intellectual property rights, Amazon has always adopted a zero-tolerance attitude towards infringement and counterfeiting .

In the past year, Amazon seized and disposed of more than 6 million counterfeit products worldwide , which is twice the number in 2021.

In its annual brand protection report, Amazon said its team fighting counterfeits has 15,000 employees, including software developers, data scientists and researchers.

In order to prevent counterfeit goods from entering the platform, Amazon has adopted automatic protection technology. In 2022, Amazon's regulatory system prevented bad actors from opening new accounts more than 800,000 times.

Before these bad sellers list their products for sale, Amazon’s regulatory system will conduct a comprehensive review, and more than 99% of counterfeit product listings will be screened out, blocked or deleted by Amazon’s automatic protection technology.

In recent years, Amazon has been committed to protecting the intellectual property rights of brands and strictly prohibiting the sale of counterfeit products on its platform.  

At the same time, Amazon is also constantly strengthening its cooperation with Chinese law enforcement agencies. At the end of last year, Chinese police destroyed three counterfeiting dens based on information provided by Amazon and seized a total of more than 240,000 counterfeit goods.

These include 130,000 counterfeit auto parts and counterfeit brand labels, nearly 80,000 counterfeit luxury goods and more than 30,000 counterfeit clothing items. These counterfeit goods infringe the intellectual property rights of many well-known brands such as BMW, Porsche and Puma.

For Amazon sellers, it is important to pay attention to compliance operations and never touch Amazon's minefields, so as not to lose more than the gains.

Selling fake goods

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