It's March 15, International Consumer Rights Day. During this year's two sessions, the Supreme People's Procuratorate work report paid much attention to illegal and criminal acts in the fields of food and drug safety, intellectual property rights, and environmental protection that the people are concerned about. In 2021, the Supreme People's Procuratorate and the Supreme People's Court jointly issued a judicial interpretation to strictly prosecute and severely punish crimes such as the production and sale of water-injected meat and fake and shoddy health care products; and launched special actions with the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs to focus on punishing crimes such as the illegal use of prohibited and restricted drugs. In 2021, procuratorial organs will devote themselves to service innovation and development, continue to increase the punishment of crimes of infringement of intellectual property rights, and strengthen comprehensive protection.
Empty wine bottle "facelift" transformed into high-end wine
Shiyan, Hubei Province: From the rapid approval of arrest, follow-up supervision
Strictly crack down on the manufacture and sale of counterfeit goods
Some of the fake liquor produced and sold by the criminal suspects seized at the scene
The purchased empty wine bottles were transformed into "plastic surgery" by criminals, and cheap liquor was transformed into high-end liquor of thousands of yuan per bottle, and the "body value" soared dozens of times. On February 15, the Zhangwan District Procuratorate of Shiyan City, Hubei Province, arrested Zhou and Chen, who were suspected of counterfeiting registered trademarks, in accordance with the law, severely cracked down on the illegal and criminal activities of making and selling counterfeit goods, purified the market environment, and effectively protected the "safety on the tip of the tongue" of the broad masses of the people.
The courier brother resigned to make and sell fake wine
Zhou Was once a courier brother, and by chance, he met Wang Mou, the big brother of Wenzhou, and asked him for advice on "business classics". Seeing Zhou's courtesy, Wang introduced him to the business of making and selling fake wine and sold him a large number of counterfeit registered trademark logos and packaging.
In August 2021, Zhou resigned from his courier job, purchased empty wine bottles in major hotels in the city every day, and then filled the bottles of high-end liquor such as Wuliangye and Maotai with a bottle of low-grade liquor of more than 20 yuan, labeled it, and packaged it into the packaging of real wine for sale.
Chen Mou is a person released from prison, who was sentenced to one year in prison for manufacturing and selling fake wine, shortly after his release from prison, he heard that Zhou had channels for making and selling fake wine, so he took the initiative to contact him, and after getting the counterfeit registered trademark logo through Zhou, he recovered empty wine bottles in large quantities from the waste acquisition department, and used low-grade wine filling like Zhou Mou, pretending to be Wuliangye, Maotai and other well-known brands for sale.
These fake liquors flowed into more than a dozen tobacco and liquor merchant houses in the urban area, and the owners of the tobacco and liquor merchant houses sold them to consumers at a price of more than 1,000 yuan even though they knew that it was fake liquor, and made huge profits from them.
Find out the clues of the fake liquor case
From January 11 to 12 this year, the Police of Zhangwan in Shiyan investigated and found two fake dimples points that Zhou and Chen owned that integrated production, storage and sales.
At that time, it was the eve of the Spring Festival, and the demand for liquor in the market was large, so the production and sale of fake liquor seriously disrupted the market order and caused potential harm to the life and health of consumers. After learning of this clue, the Zhangwan District Procuratorate intervened in advance according to law.
Zhou Mou and Chen Mou, who were seizing the time to "rush to work", were arrested at the scene. The public security organs investigated and punished their warehouses, seized a large number of equipment, raw materials, trademarks, empty wine bottles and packaged liquor at the scene, and confiscated a large number of high-end fake liquors in more than 10 stores selling fake liquor.
Subsequently, the case was transferred to the Zhangwan District Procuratorate for approval of arrest. After review, in order to obtain illegal benefits, Zhou and Chen purchased counterfeit registered trademark logos and packaging, used recycled empty wine bottles, filled them with cheap liquor, and packaged them into high-end liquors such as Wuliangye, Maotai and Guojiao, which were sold in Shiyan City, and the case value reached more than 50,000 yuan.
Five days later, the court made a decision to approve the arrest on suspicion of passing off a registered trademark. At present, the case is still under further investigation.
Follow up and supervise the "safety on the tip of the tongue"
After approving the arrest, the Zhangwan District Procuratorate quickly relied on the investigation supervision and coordination office assigned to the public security organs to establish a flexible post-arrest supervision mechanism to follow up and supervise the case.
In view of the source, sales direction, and amount of crime of bottled liquor, the court made a detailed list of investigation and evidence collection, clarified the direction of supplementary investigation and the significance of evidence collection, guided the public security organs to continue to collect fixed evidence, comprehensively investigated the facts of the crime, and worked together to build a complete evidence system with the seizure of counterfeit liquor involved in the case, appraisal opinions, and price certificates as the core.
The procurator in charge told reporters that the counterfeiting dens of Zhou and Chen are located in the urban-rural junction, close to the city center, convenient for procurement and transportation, relatively hidden, and easy to make and hide counterfeits. The loose management of private housing leases and the lack of supervision are very easy to become a den of counterfeiting.
In the next step, the court will issue procuratorial suggestions to relevant departments, making suggestions from the aspects of giving play to the role of grid members, improving the housing rental system, strengthening the supervision of mobile tenants, and regular inspections, so as to ensure that the supervision and governance "leaves no gaps".
The "brand sweatshirt" turned out to be from a small garment factory
Zibo Linzi: Cut off counterfeiting, selling counterfeits
Production, supply and marketing "one-stop" industrial chain
Prosecutors are comparing collar tags, armbands, etc. of true and false clothing
With the vigorous development of e-commerce, some unscrupulous elements who are willing to take chances have set their sights on "business opportunities", shifted the position of making and selling counterfeits to the Internet, and even developed a "one-stop" industrial chain of production, supply and sales.
On March 11, the linzi district procuratorate of Zibo City, Shandong Province, prosecuted Liu Laifu and three other defendants for counterfeiting the Champion brand and selling more than 780,000 yuan, and on March 11, the court sentenced Liu Laifu and Zhou Mei to three years' imprisonment, suspended for five years, and fined each for the crime of counterfeiting a registered trademark.
Consumer complaints lead to copycat goods
In February 2019, Yu Li, the manager of an e-commerce co., LTD. in Zibo, came to the local public security organ to report that from August to October 2018, he purchased more than 780,000 yuan of champion brand sweatshirts from Li Zheng and sold them, because the sweatshirts sold by consumer complaints were fakes, resulting in heavy losses to his company.
After investigation, the public security organs arrested Li Zheng and his father-in-law Liu Laifu in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, and Zhou Mei in Ji'an City, Jiangxi Province.
Li is a native of Ji'an, Jiangxi, and he registered two companies in Shenzhen and founded his own auto parts brand. In 2017, Li Zheng, who was preparing for the transformation, found a new business opportunity: sportswear with novel designs and fashionable casuals became more and more sought after. So Li zheng started a business selling branded shoes and clothes in his own online store.
Yu Li, who runs an online store in Zibo, Shandong, became a customer of Li Zheng because of an online shopping. In August 2018, I heard that Yu Li wanted to buy a batch of genuine champion brand sweatshirts, and Li Zheng said that there was a source of goods in this regard. Out of the trust established by the previous cooperation, Yu Li ordered sweatshirts with a total price of more than 780,000 yuan three times, and remitted the payment to several different accounts according to Li Zheng's requirements.
But after a period of sales, Yu Li continued to receive complaints from customers that the sweatshirt was not genuine. Yu Li inquired and found that there was indeed a problem with these sweatshirts, and suspected that they were mixed with true and false copycat goods.
"Brand sweatshirts" come from small garment factories
Yu Li found Li Zheng for verification and asked him to issue a genuine purchase certificate. Li Zheng neither admitted that the sale to Yu Li was a fake, nor did he provide relevant proof.
In fact, Li Zheng's so-called genuine champion brand sweatshirt is actually from a small garment factory in his hometown of Ji'an, Jiangxi. In June 2018, Li was finding Zhou Mei, the owner of the garment factory, without the permission or authorization of the champion brand rights holder, and reached an agreement for Zhou Mei's factory to produce counterfeit champion brand sweatshirts for him. Li Zheng, who directs the remote control in Shenzhen, is responsible for transporting the main label, size mark, wash mark and so on of the sweatshirt to the factory.
In order to ship the goods as soon as possible, Li Zheng also specially arranged for his father-in-law Liu Laifu to stay in the garment factory and be responsible for the on-site acceptance of ready-to-wear, packaging inventory, warehousing and delivery.
As a result, Li Zheng, Zhou Mei, Liu Laifu and others cooperated with each other tacitly, the division of labor was clearly refined, and the links were interlocked, showing a "one-stop" chain-type criminal model of production, supply and sales of counterfeits. As of the time of the case, Zhou Mei had completed a total of 5 orders from Li Zheng, processing a total of 17,625 counterfeit champion brand sweatshirts worth 892,000 yuan.
Intervene in advance to accurately combat criminal gangs
After the incident, the Linzi District Procuratorate was invited to intervene in advance. The procurator undertaking the case communicates with investigators on case jurisdiction, characterization of conduct, and legality of evidence, and jointly discusses the direction of investigation and evidence collection.
Because the owner of the champion brand clothing in this case was an American company and its intellectual property agency was a Beijing company, the procurator instructed the investigators to collect evidence from the brand apparel agents one by one, and timely obtained relevant notarized documents, ownership statements, third-party authorization letters and other documents, which further confirmed that the behavior of Li Zheng and others infringed the mainland trademark management system and the exclusive right to use registered trademarks of others.
In view of the fact that many people participated in this case and were responsible for the division of labor, the procurator strictly examined the degree of participation and seriousness of the circumstances of each participant in the manufacture and sale of counterfeit goods, and fully informed the plea leniency system and the criminal justice policy of blending leniency with severity. In view of Li Zheng's refusal to admit guilt and his many defenses against the amount of sales and subjective knowledge, the procurator comprehensively reviewed his WeChat chat records, reviewed the flow of funds, and further improved the evidence system by combining objective evidence such as witness testimony and documentary evidence.
According to the different confession attitudes of the three suspects, the procurators made different sentencing recommendations and initiated public prosecutions. On March 10, the court held a hearing on the case and rendered the above-mentioned judgment, and the defendant Li Zheng has not yet made a judgment.
In recent years, the Linzi District Procuratorate has always maintained a severe punishment posture for crimes of infringement of intellectual property rights, taking the lead in holding a work promotion meeting on the establishment of a rapid and coordinated protection system for intellectual property rights in the whole region, increasing the punishment of crimes of infringement of intellectual property, especially crimes of trademark rights, patent rights and trade secrets, in accordance with the law; paying attention to giving full play to procuratorial functions, comprehensively applying and proposing sentencing recommendations such as increasing the application of prohibition orders, prohibitions on practicing employment, fines, and confiscation of property, so as to enhance the deterrent power of criminal punishment Based on problems such as imperfect enterprise systems and inadequate management discovered in the course of handling cases, actively formulate and issue procuratorial suggestions, help improve internal risk prevention and control mechanisms, and enhance the awareness and ability of intellectual property rights holders to protect their rights. In the past three years, the court has approved the arrest of 14 people in 9 cases of production and sale of counterfeit and shoddy goods and the infringement of intellectual property rights, and prosecuted 16 cases of 38 people.
(The people involved in the article are pseudonyms)
Beware of health care products have "pits"
Cangzhou Canal: After the decision not to prosecute
Supervise and urge administrative organs to carry out special rectification
"Up to now, our bureau has guided 24 small catering registration licenses and 21 individual business licenses, ordered 18 households to stop business activities, filed and investigated 18 households, and fined and confiscated 29,885 yuan." On March 1, the Canal District Procuratorate of Cangzhou City, Hebei Province, received the second reply letter from the District Market Supervision and Administration Bureau to the procuratorial suggestions of the procuratorate.
Opened a store without a license to sell three products
On November 10, 2021, the Canal District Procuratorate accepted five cases of selling toxic and harmful food transferred by the public security organs for review and prosecution, these 5 cases are similar in cases, Yin and other 5 criminal suspects are in the case of not obtaining a business license and health product business license, privately operating a small store to sell adult health products.
Yin Mou, a rural housewife, opened a health product business store in 2016 without a business license or a health product business license. Once, a strange man went to the door to sell products such as "Red Diamond Viagra", saying that these health care products are not bad people. After some haggling, the two finally sold the batch of health products for seven or eight hundred yuan. Yin said that he sold a total of 28 boxes of the above health care products, making a profit of about 1250 yuan. After identification, the above health care products have been detected sildenafil ingredients that are explicitly prohibited by the state.
"Most of these health product stores operate without licenses, and the products they sell are from unknown sources, and they belong to sanwu products." Canal District Procuratorate prosecutor told reporters that sildenafil is a prescription drug, need to be taken under the guidance of a doctor, excessive consumption is easy to induce cardiovascular disease, diabetes and other diseases, according to national regulations is food or health care products prohibited additives. According to the relevant judicial interpretations, foods with sildenafil added are directly identified as "toxic and harmful foods". Those who produce or sell shall be convicted and punished for the crime of producing or selling poisonous or harmful food.
On-site visits to understand the situation
"Through the on-site visit to the prosecutor, it was learned that the health care product stores involved in the case have been closed after the incident, and no one has reported adverse reactions after using the products sold by these 5 health product stores." The procurator handling the case said that after accepting the case, on the one hand, they strictly examined the evidence and interrogated the criminal suspects one by one, and on the other hand, they visited the 5 health product stores involved in the case and nearby residents with investigators. Based on the evidentiary situation of the case, the procurator handling the case believes that the actions of the 5 criminal suspects, the facts are clear, the evidence is credible and sufficient, and constitute the crime of selling poisonous and harmful food. After the 5 people arrived at the case, they all truthfully confessed the facts of the crime, and admitted guilt and accepted punishment, and the scope of the purchase audience of the toxic and harmful food they sold was small, and the social harm was small, and it was planned that the 5 people would be treated as a relative non-prosecution. Subsequently, the court held a joint meeting of procurators, and after discussion and study, unanimously agreed with the opinions of the procurators handling the case.
On December 3, 2021, the Canal District Prosecutor's Office held a public hearing on these five cases. After discussion, the hearing officer unanimously agreed that the procuratorate would treat the five criminal suspects with relative non-prosecution. Subsequently, the procurator handling the case conducted rule of law education for 5 criminal suspects, and 5 criminal suspects said that they would study the law and abide by the law in the future.
Work together to protect the legitimate rights and interests of consumers
On December 20, 2021, after the Canal District Procuratorate made a relative non-prosecution of the five criminal suspects in accordance with the law, it submitted a procuratorial opinion to the District Market Supervision and Administration Bureau on the confiscation of illegal gains and administrative punishment for the five people involved in the case. On December 24, the court issued procuratorial suggestions to the Canal Zone Market Supervision and Administration Bureau, in view of the problems found in the process of handling the case, it was recommended to strengthen the management of unlicensed and unlicensed operations, conduct a comprehensive investigation of unlicensed and unlicensed operations, distinguish and classify different types of unlicensed and unlicensed operations, take measures according to the case, and properly handle them; carry out various forms of publicity and education activities to improve the self-discipline awareness of operators.
After receiving the procuratorial suggestions, the Canal Zone Market Supervision and Administration Bureau attached great importance to it and filed a case for investigation against the five illegal operators involved in the case on January 10 this year, and the case is currently in the process of further handling. On January 15, the Canal District Procuratorate received the first written reply letter from the District Market Supervision Administration. In its reply letter, the bureau said that it will carry out a three-month special rectification of unlicensed and unlicensed operations, and conduct a thorough investigation and classification of unlicensed business behavior in the jurisdiction.
Source: Procuratorial Daily
Transferred from: Supreme People's Procuratorate