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The fight against illicit tabacco products continues – The UK Borders Agency and HM Revenue & Customs officers have arrested two men on suspicion of smuggling 10 million cigarettes into the UK. The smuggled cigarettes, which arrived in the UK by cargo container from Dubai, had evaded around £1.8 million in duty.
The confiscated cigarettes will apparently be incinerated, providing power to the National Grid.
The annual Global Retail Theft Barometer has found that shrinkage (shoplifting, employee fraud, organised crime etc.) has increased globally by 6.6% this year, totalling €88.878 million. In Europe, the increase in shrinkage has been even greater at 7.8% (representing 1.39% of retail sales).
Expenditure on loss prevention and security increased by 5.6% globally to €21m but the author of the report, Professor Joshua Bamfield, said that those retailers which achieved a reduction in shrinkage increased their loss prevention expenditure by twice this figure.
The report shows that, in these difficult economic times, retail theft is a growing problem. Retailers must think more creatively to overcome the challenges and maintain control over shrinkage.
Major brands are increasingly being targeted by unscrupulous Chinese businesses seeking to profit from other companies’ brand reputation. Following the recent outing of several fake Apple Stores in Kunming, CTV have reported on other fake stores across China, ranging from furntiture outlets to coffee shops.
This kind of forgery damages brand reputation and value. The Chinese government and brand owners need to take steps to overcome this apparently increasing phenomenon.
According to the China Daily, analysts say that a third of local seed companies sell normal seeds, claiming that they are superior breeds or genetically modified. Such activity leaves farmers disappointed with poor crop yields and global biotechnology giants, like Monsanto and Pioneer, out of pocket from lost sales.
This is yet another example of the threat to brand protection that all sectors currently face. Brand owners need to think carefully about how they can protect their brand reputation and the perceived value of their product.
The European Commission has published its 2010 Report on EU customs enforcement of intellectual property rights, stating that there were 79,112 detentions of goods suspected of infringing Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) leading to 103.3 million seized items with a domestic retail value of €1.1 billion.
What were the most frequently seized articles?
- Cigarettes – 34%
- Office stationary – 9%
- Other tobacco products – 8%
- Labels, tags and emblems – 8%
- Clothing – 7%
- Toys – 7%
85% of the seized goods originated from China. The report illustrates the continuing problem of counterfeit smuggling into the EU.
The Chinese embassy in Washington is apparently refusing to give visas to US officials wanting to visit China to investigate counterfeit electronic parts, as reported by the Lincoln Tribune. US Senator Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, has hinted at the Chinese embassy’s reluctance to grant US access without an official Chinese escort. The US wants to investigate Chinese electronics manufacturers after it emerged that the U.S. Defense Department has unwittingly purchased counterfeit components for use in various crucial systems, including missile defense and flight control computers.
A new website has launched which seeks to reduce the impact of counterfeit goods being sold online by providing a trusted place to find websites selling genuine products. An Organised Crime Task Force study in 2005 found that 13% of people in the UK had bought fakes thinking that they were real. The new website, www.brand-i.org, is one way of reducing this figure but the problem of counterfeits is likely to continue unless they are stopped at the source.
The counterfeiting trade continues to pervade products in all sectors. U.S. Customs and Border control officials’ latest seizure in Los Angeles was a $1 million shipment of counterfeit karaoke machines. Read more at the Washington Post
The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime has warned about the growing problem of counterfeit medicines. In a press release issued last week, the UNODC noted that counterfeit drugs have an estimated value of $1.6bn in Africa and Asia alone. According to the World Health Organisation, three in 10 pharmaceutical products in the combined African, Asian and Latin American markets are fake.
UNODC Executive Director Yury Fedotov has called for increased attention to be given: “Fraudulent medicines offer organized criminal groups a high-return commodity with relatively low risks, ultimately at the expense of the health of unsuspecting people. These counterfeit goods indiscriminately kill, depriving the poorest of lifesaving medicines and leading to countless deaths.”
Some 60% 0f public sector organisations experienced fraud in the last twelve months, up from 52% in 2009, says a new report from PwC out today. The report suggests that loss of income as a result of the economic downturn has caused more employees to turn to fraud, emphasising the need for organisations to be extra vigilant of fraudulent activity among their employees and others.
The press release is at http://www.ukmediacentre.pwc.com/News-Releases/Fraud-in-public-sector-increases-as-cuts-bite-106b.aspx and the full report can be downloaded at http://www.ukmediacentre.pwc.com/imagelibrary/downloadMedia.ashx?MediaDetailsID=1912
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