Macau Customs officers on Tuesday busted three shops near Rua do Bairro Va Tai suspected of selling products infringing the copyrights of an international brand’s designer handbags, where they seized 727 of the bogus items.
Four locals aged between 35 and 43, comprising three male owners of the shops and a salesman, were arrested during Tuesday’s operation, Macau Customs Service (SA) Intellectual Property Rights Department acting chief Kong Wai Yi said during a press conference yesterday at its headquarters in Barra.
According to Kong, the Macau Customs Service continues to clamp down on parallel-trading activities by carrying out spot checks at local shops. During Tuesday’s operation its officers discovered that the 370-pataca price of each of the purported “designer handbags” sold by the three shops was “quite different” from the genuine ones priced at between 3,000 patacas and 5,000 patacas each. Therefore, Kong said, the customs officers suspected that the shops were selling copyright infringement products.
Kong said that after putting the three shops under surveillance, the officers searched and confiscated 48 boxes containing 727 “designer handbags”, which were later analysed by the brand’s appraisers and determined to be counterfeit, adding that if the items were genuine, they would retail for about three million patacas in total.
Kong did not reveal the affected brand but the fake handbags displayed at the Customs Service headquarters showed its logo.
Kong noted that the bogus items were transported from Hong Kong to Macau by ship, pointing out that the three owners assisted the supplier with the distribution of the counterfeit handbags in the mainland with the help of parallel traders.
Kong said that the supplier of the bogus goods was not immediately known.
According to Kong, among the three shops, two were tasked with the handbags’ distribution, while the other arranged their storage. She pointed out that the Macau Customs Service clamped down on the illegal operation – comprising shop sales in Macau and cross-border parallel trading – just one day after it had started.
Kong said that the suspects have been transferred to the Public Prosecution Office (MP). According to the Industrial Property Code Decree-Law No 97/99/M, the suspects face a hefty fine and up to six months in jail.
This photo shows the 727 bogus designer handbags seized by the Macau Customs Service on Tuesday displayed during yesterday’s press conference about the case at its headquarters in Barra. – Photo: Yuki Lei
