Some money is easy to make, but it is risky, and you will end up in jail, such as making fakes and selling counterfeits. The greater the fame of the brand, the more people take risks, but whether it is a sales platform or a brand, it has always attached importance to the protection of intellectual property rights, and more and more criminals have been arrested by law enforcement agencies.
Amazon slammed down, and hundreds of people involved in the case were arrested in China
Recently, Amazon released its 2023 Brand Protection Report. According to the report, in the past year, Amazon and law enforcement agencies in many places in mainland China have joined forces to crack down on counterfeiting, and hundreds of people involved in the operation have been arrested, such as:
In Guangzhou, Amazon and the Conghua District Public Security Bureau have joined forces to raid luxury bag gangs that make and sell counterfeit goods many times. As part of these enforcement operations, the warehouses of two upstream suppliers and two manufacturers were smashed, and nearly 9,000 counterfeit luxury bags involving a number of well-known luxury brands were seized.
It is understood that in this case, the seller of counterfeit goods used social media platforms to promote fake goods, and after reaching an agreement with potential buyers, he placed an order through the non-infringing product link of the Amazon store, and finally reached an illegal transaction.
In Shanghai, Amazon cooperated with the Changning Public Security Bureau to crack another case of making and selling counterfeits. After cracking down on sellers of counterfeit luxury jewellery and two of their upstream suppliers, the police at the scene seized more than 200,000 pieces of counterfeit jewellery.
This case has also become the largest number of counterfeit jewelry seized by Amazon in China's crackdown on counterfeit jewelry so far.
In addition, in July last year, in Shanghai, Amazon also cooperated with the Xuhui public security organs to take law enforcement actions against an individual who sold counterfeit well-known hard drives, and seized tens of thousands of counterfeit hard drive products, packaging boxes and counterfeit logos on the spot. At the end of 2023, the counterfeiter was sentenced to three years in prison, suspended for three years, and fined RMB 50,000.
In October last year, foreign media reported that a Chinese seller who runs an Amazon store was sentenced to 3 years in prison and fined 25,000 US dollars (equivalent to 182,000 yuan).
Amazon's Counterfeit Unit (CCU) has joined forces with Prada and several other international luxury brands to accuse the seller of counterfeit luxury brands on Amazon.
Amazon CCU said that it had noticed the seller as early as 2021, and after a long period of investigation and evidence collection, Amazon provided a criminal case transfer letter to Chinese law enforcement authorities to investigate its criminal responsibility.
In the end, the seller was sentenced to three years in prison and a fine of 180,000 yuan by the Putian Municipal Court of Fujian Province, and the income from the production and sale of counterfeits was confiscated, and the remaining counterfeit goods were seized and destroyed.
Throughout last year, Amazon and Chinese law enforcement agencies took more than 50 law enforcement actions against counterfeiters and related manufacturers and distributors in the upstream of the counterfeiting industry chain, involving dozens of well-known brands at home and abroad, covering sportswear, auto parts, luxury goods, hardware products, digital electronics, pet supplies, game products, jewelry and other categories.
Sold counterfeit goods on Amazon and was fined $15 million
In fact, Amazon's anti-counterfeiting operations are all over the world, in addition to the above-mentioned cooperation with Chinese law enforcement agencies, Amazon is also in the United States and other places with international well-known brands to fight counterfeiting.
In June last year, a U.S. seller was sentenced to four to six and a half years in prison and a $15 million fine for selling counterfeit Cisco products on Amazon.
The U.S. Department of Justice document pointed out that since 2013, the seller has imported thousands of copycat Cisco products from all over the world for sale with a number of leather bag companies and dozens of Amazon stores, and has continued to sell counterfeits on a large scale. It was not until 2022 that Amazon and the Cisco brand seized the evidence, and since then they have been jointly charged.
During this period, about 180 shipments of counterfeit Cisco devices were seized by U.S. Customs. Even in 2021, the seller's warehouse was seized in a surprise inspection with a retail price of more than $7 million for 1,156 copycat Cisco products.
In 10 years, the retail value of the counterfeit goods sold has exceeded $1 billion, so it is estimated that the illegal profits are in the tens of millions of dollars.
Canon should be regarded as Amazon's old partner in fighting counterfeiting. Last year alone, Canon teamed up with Amazon to remove thousands of illegal listings on the platform.
For example, in the first quarter of last year, Canon reported to Amazon a total of 853 infringing listings on the platform, including six sites in Germany, Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom, France and the Netherlands.
It is reported that from June 2018 to April 2023, Canon submitted a large number of infringement reports to Amazon and successfully deleted 31,116 infringing listings.
In May last year, Canon submitted a list of offending sellers who tried to advertise and sell Canon camera batteries and chargers on the platform, and after verifying the authenticity of the products, Amazon quickly closed 29 seller accounts operated by the violators, after which the two companies filed a joint lawsuit against these violators.
In February last year, Amazon and office supply brand Brother jointly sued 18 sellers. The German-based counterfeiters sold counterfeit Brother brand toner cartridges through Amazon, and this case was the first civil lawsuit filed by Amazon in Europe against a counterfeiter in conjunction with a brand.
Amazon has also cooperated with action camera brand GoPro, luxury car brand BMW, jewelry brand Cartier, Felco, King Technology and other anti-counterfeiting activities.
7 million fakes are processed in a year
In 2022 alone, Amazon dealt with more than 6 million counterfeits and prosecuted more than 1,300 illegal sellers in the United States, the United Kingdom, European Union countries and China (the number in 2021 was 600).
In 2023, Amazon has discovered, seized, and properly disposed of more than 7 million counterfeits worldwide.
Amazon has also strengthened cooperation with brands in cross-border counterfeit sales, and through cooperation with Chinese law enforcement agencies, several companies and hundreds of people involved in the case have been financially punished or criminally sentenced.
In 2023, Amazon will spend $1.2 billion on the platform to fight counterfeiting, not only improving the protection of genuine copies at the technical level, but also organizing a professional anti-counterfeiting team of more than 15,000 people. In addition, the Anti-Counterfeiting Exchange (ACX) was launched to make it easier for sellers to identify and report counterfeit products.
Since the launch of its anti-counterfeiting team in 2020, Amazon has prosecuted or reported more than 21,000 bad actors to law enforcement worldwide.
In 2023, Amazon also blocked more than 700,000 attempts by bad actors to create new accounts, thus stopping fakes from hitting shelves.
In addition to product authenticity, Amazon also has zero tolerance for other fraudulent behaviors, such as fake reviews.
In 2015, Amazon filed its first lawsuit against fake review practitioners, and since then it has built a team dedicated to fighting fake reviews.
In 2023 alone, Amazon took action against 58 violators in the U.S., including 14 new lawsuits, and in Europe, it took action against 44 violators and filed nine new lawsuits for false reviews.
Amazon also filed 13 new indictments and two criminal renditions against 61 Chinese commenters for violating the rules, including Mr. Wu, a fake review practitioner, who was sentenced to two years in prison and suspended for two years and six months.
Obviously, despite repeated bans, Amazon's attitude towards fake reviews and counterfeits has always been one and the same.