Cheap can be expensive
No piry copies on vacation – punishment threatens
Summer is not just a holiday season on the Mediterranean. But also high season for criminal gangs that sell fake branded goods to vacationers.
Anyone who buys fake branded brands on summer vacation must expect high punishments – both at the holiday destination and in Germany. Penalties for buyers of pirated products are now imposed in Spain and Italy. This reports Eva Schewior, President of the German Patent and Trademark Office. In many cases, fakes would be sold from criminal networks. “Anyone who buys them supports organized crime,” said the boss of the Munich Federal Agency. As examples of frequently fake products, she cited football jerseys, luxury watches and sunglasses.
According to Schewior’s words, customs control threatens to check when traveling home or the package to the home address. It referred to the statistics, which according to the customs officers last year in 16,857 cases illegal goods pulled and destroyed; Mostly, but not just in mailings. The value of the confiscated goods was therefore 417 million euros – and thus more than twice as high as in the previous year. “Get vacation without fakes,” the DPMA President appealed to the holidaymakers.
dpa
Source: Stern
