Macau Customs Service officers searched and found 352 fake products infringing on the brands’ intellectual property rights (IP) involving 13 brands worth three million patacas from two clothing shops in the central district, Customs Service Intellectual Property Rights Department Acting Chief Kong Wai Yi said at a press conference on Saturday at its headquarters in Barra, adding that a shop owner, a local worker and a non-local resident worker (NRW) were questioned on Friday.
The shop owner surnamed Kou is a local female resident aged 44, according to Kong.
Kong said the Customs Service had recently received a report pointing out that someone was selling “fake products” at a clothing shop in the central district, adding that Customs Service officers discovered that another boutique near the shop was also involved in intellectual property (IP) rights infringement.
Therefore, the Customs Service took action on Friday. Kong said that 42 and 310 fake products, including accessories and handbags, worth a total of more than three million patacas, were found in the two shops respectively, adding that the officers also discovered a number of purchase records.
Kong said that during the operation, the officers discovered that the two shops are owned by the same person - Kou, who said that she purchased the fake products from nearby regions, and sold them at prices between 400 and 23,000 patacas each, adding that the products were not displayed at the shops. Kou said that she would purchase the bogus products in nearby regions after she had received orders for such items from customers in Macau. The fake products would then first be hidden in the shops’ storage area upstairs among genuine items until the customers would come to buy them, according to Kong.
Kong said that after the various brands identified the “fake products” estimating that the shops had begun the tort in May 2020.
Kong underlined that people who sell fake branded products can be imprisoned up to six months or fined for 30 to 90 days.
A total of 352 fake brand products seized from the two clothing shops in the central district, such as handbags, sunglasses and watches, by the Macau Customs Service are displayed during a press conference on Saturday at its headquarters in Barra. – Photo courtesy of TDM
