Police crack down on counterfeit goods

Police have detained more than 350 suspects for producing or selling counterfeit products this year, officers said yesterday.

They said they have cracked 600 cases involving hundreds of fake products including medicines, food, cosmetics and car components.

They estimated the value of the counterfeit goods at about 800 million yuan (US$130 million).

Police said they are working more closely with their counterparts in other provinces to crack down on counterfeit products. They added that fake products are usually made in one place and sold in others.

"We're cracking down on fake products as a whole," said Cheng Yiping, director of the Economic Crime Investigation Department of Shanghai police.

"We are not just targeting the sellers, but working to destroy the whole chain of the illegal business," Cheng said.

He said most fake products are not produced in Shanghai but that the city is a major market for counterfeit items.

In a recent case, eight suspects were detained by the Qingpu District police for selling fake Lancome and Clinique skin care products.

Police said they received a tip in March that the suspects were using an apartment in the district and selling fake cosmetics through the Internet.

Qingpu police officer Zheng Xiaodong said the suspects bought barrels of fake Clinique and Lancome lotion and empty bottles from Guangdong Province. He said they used the hideout to add the lotions to the empty bottles before selling them online.

Police raided the apartment in the district and a bigger one in the neighboring city of Suzhou in Jiangsu Province on March 20, catching six of the suspects.

The main suspects, surnamed Xu and Wu, fled the country but were later persuaded to return and turn themselves in, Zheng said.

"The fake lotions smelled similar to the real ones and most customers wouldn't be able to tell the difference," Zheng said.

"So far we haven't found any harmful elements in the fake lotion, but they were selling it at a price close to the real one," he said.

Most of the counterfeit lotion was sold through taobao.com.

The website was cooperating with police in their investigation, Zheng said.