Society

Counterfeit products hit by raids

By Zhang Yan and Cao Yin (China Daily)
Updated: 2011-04-13 08:13

BEIJING - Chinese police have seized 14,185 suspects in the past five months in an ongoing campaign to halt the production and sale of counterfeit goods, including software, wine, drugs and suitcases bearing the names of global luxury brands.

Two workers from the commerce authority in Chengdu, capital of Southwest China's Sichuan province, break bottles containing counterfeit liquor on Jan 27. [Provided to China Daily]

These suspects were allegedly involved in more than 8,000 cases of intellectual property rights violations, according to figures revealed on Tuesday by the Ministry of Public Security at a news conference.

Since November, the ministry's campaign codenamed "Bright Sword" primarily targeted eight fields including fake international brands, fake food and drugs, pirated film and television works as well as organized crime.

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During the period, more than 7,000 production and sales outlets were shut down, said Gao Feng, deputy director of the ministry's economic crime investigation department, adding that the ministry will focus on the supervision of 340 major cases to ensure thorough investigation and punishment of violators.

"Manufacturing and selling of the counterfeit goods not only seriously violated the legitimate rights of the enterprises and consumers, but also posed a great threat to people's health and disrupted the market," said Gao.

According to Gao, "Bright Sword" will continue until the end of the year and police have primarily targeted four activities -- crimes involved with agriculture, fake drugs, counterfeit wine and food, as well as fake brands.

Counterfeit liquors are also on the priority list, he added.

Police seized 483 suspects and confiscated some 134,000 bottles of bogus alcoholic drinks during a three-day crackdown.

Police in 14 places, including Beijing, Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Guizhou, cracked 40 cases involving the production and selling of bogus alcohol, according to Gao.

From March 23 to 25, police raided 272 production and sales outlets nationwide and found more than 300 devices used for counterfeiting as well as over 13.5 million pieces of forged packaging materials, such as bottle caps, labels and boxes of well-known brands.

Meanwhile, more than 30 tons of bulk wines and 13.5 million fake bottles, caps and labels worth up to 2 billion yuan ($306 million) were also seized by police.

Over the barrel

In responding to the public anger and widespread panic following a tainted pork scandal last month, the country's police have detained 96 people for allegedly producing, selling or using clenbuterol and confiscated over 400 kilograms of the fat-burning drug in Henan province, said Ma Weiya, a senior official with the Ministry of Public Security, at the conference.

The police also destroyed a production site as well as two distribution networks of the illegal food additive.

Food producer Shuanghui Group's subsidiary in Jiyuan, a city in Henan, was exposed on March 15 for using clenbuterol-tainted pork in its products.

Clenbuterol is fed to pigs to stop them from accumulating fat. It is banned from being added to pig feed in China because it is poisonous to people when ingested.

Ma said public security authorities will continue the campaign to combat crimes relating to food safety until next February to completely eradicate the production sources and sales channels.