LONDON: A shop owner in Admiralty and his employee have been arrested in a customs crackdown on the sale of fake luxury products.
The men were arrested last week after allegedly selling counterfeit goods to two undercover customs officers posing as shoppers, the Customs and Excise Department said.
It is understood the shop is located in the Admiralty Centre.
“More than 600 counterfeit products worth more than HK$1 million were confiscated inside the shop’s secret storeroom,” said Phoebe Wong Wai-chuen, commander of the intellectual property general investigation division.
She said the 200 sq ft storeroom situated behind the shop’s cashier counter displayed more than 20 brands of counterfeit items – mainly women’s leather handbags, shoes and accessories – for regular clients only. Walk-in customers were not allowed access.
“The fake products were sold at 30 to 60 per cent of the original prices of the genuine goods. We believe consumers knew the items were counterfeit products,” Wong said.
“The shop bought the goods for a few hundred to thousands of dollars each but sold them for thousands of dollars up to more than HK$10,000.”
Describing the quality of the seized items as good, she said the shop targeted female office workers in the district.
Wong said initial investigations showed the shop, which provided tailor-made service of leather goods over many years, was involved in the sale of fake products for less than a year.
“We believe poor business drove the shop into the illegal trade,” a source with the knowledge of the investigation said.
It is understood the seized goods were smuggled into Hong Kong from the mainland.
The 47-year-old shop owner and his 60-year-old employee have been released on bail pending for further investigation.
In the past 11 months of this year, customs officers seized about HK$85 million worth of counterfeit items, a 20 per cent rise from the same period last year.
The source said the rise was the result of the enforcement action against counterfeit activities at street level and at border checkpoints.
Wong said customs would continue to take stringent enforcement action against people selling fake goods. She also appealed anyone with information relating to suspected counterfeit activities to call their 24-hour hotline on 2545 6182.
Under the Trade Descriptions Ordinance, the maximum penalty for selling or possessing for sale counterfeit goods is a HK$500,000 fine and five years’ jail.
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