Think you can spot the difference?

For many years, China has been under immense global pressure to take a stronger stance against the counterfeit mafia that has flourished in the domestic Chinese market. These groups produce copies of high end products and sell them at the same price as the originals in markets both outside and inside China.

Recently, 73 people were caught and arrested by the joint efforts of the Chinese police and US authorities manufacturing and exporting fake international brands.  These  brands are usually extremely high end products and cater to quite a niche market.  One would think that such an industry would not amount to much but estimates and statistics say otherwise. ‘The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development estimates the amount of counterfeit goods and pirated copyrights in world trade grew from about $100 billion in 2001 to about $250 billion in 2007…’   

The potential to make money in this industry is huge but questions of legality, ethics and morals come into question. It’s strictly illegal to produce all of the counterfeits that we see circling around in such markets. Issues such as intellectual ownership rights, copyrights, patents and all sorts of other legal formalities come into play combined with the possibility of these items actually causing harm.

A health care worker was selling counterfeit poisonous cosmetics to unsuspecting customers through eBay. The ramifications of which could be huge considering her products were extremely toxic, poisonous and could even lead to brain cancer.

In conclusion, think twice before buying something which seems to good to be true.