Chinese police bust counterfeit ring, seize $14.6 mln in fake brand-name cosmetics

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Chinese police busted two underground dens manufacturing counterfeit brand-name cosmetics in eastern Zhejiang Province on Sunday, seizing over 100 million yuan (14.6 million US dollars) worth of fake products from popular big names including Shiseido, L'Oreal and Clinique.

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During a raid on two warehouses belonging to a family-owned cosmetics company in Dongyang, police uncovered 1.79 million containers of counterfeit cosmetic products such as facial cream and lip gloss, as well as 4 million empty packing boxes.

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A total 76 suspects have been arrested, including the two alleged ring leaders of the operation, a couple respectively surnamed He and Yang.

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The gang was first brought to the attention of Dongyang police after a major e-commerce platform in March filed a report that a cross-border counterfeit cosmetics ring was operating in the city.

The police set up an investigation task force and soon targeted the cosmetics company run by He and Yang.

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“The couple has a stall in Yiwu market, the wife is in charge of the sales, and the husband in charge of manufacturing in Dongyang. They started the large-scale counterfeiting in late 2015 or early 2016,” Wang Fei, the officer in charge of the raid, told local news outlet dskb.cn.

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“All the fake products were sold abroad, with a majority sent to Iran, and the rest to Pakistan, Afghanistan and other countries. But it’s difficult to track the products thereafter, some may have been resold to China,” Wang added.

A seized sales order showed that the wholesale price of each product was between 80 cents and two yuan, far less than the 80 to 150 yuan consumers would normally pay for an authentic brand name product. The counterfeit packaging was also difficult to distinguish from the original products, according to the police.

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The police said the gang could have sold many more products than what they seized in the underground workshops, and a further investigation is underway.

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