108 detained in fakes clampdown

A Crackdown on fake goods has led to 108 people being detained in the past three months for allegedly manufacturing and selling counterfeit luxury products, police said yesterday. More than 210,000 fake products were confiscated from 29 manufacturing workshops and 55 storehouses. The products were worth an estimated 196 million yuan (US$29.5 million), according to police. Some counterfeiters are said to have had accomplices in other areas. In a recent case, Hongkou District police said factories in Sichuan Province and Guangdong Province were raided for manufacturing fake Louis Vuitton and Gucci handbags. Police started the investigation at a clothing market on Qipu Road, a well-known place in town for cheap clothes. They found most of the fake branded bags and purses were supplied by two people. One was identified as Jiang and the other as Li, said Xi Jiarong, chief of economic crimes of the district police. "The sellers in the stores were all hired migrant workers and we wanted to find the bigger names," Xi told reporters yesterday. Both of the suspects were detained. Officers found the goods originated from factories in Sichuan and Guangdong, and contacted police there. On December 2, police raided a factory in Sichuan and found 2,000 kilograms of partly made fake wallets. A week later, two manufacturing dens in Guangdong were targeted with a different suspect also surnamed Jiang detained, Xi said. In the meantime, two stock houses in Shanghai, one in Yangpu and the other in Minhang, were also raided and 20,000 fake purses were found, Xi added. The value of the confiscated goods is still under evaluation, police said. The crackdown is part of a national campaign by the State Council.