Big rise in fakes seized by councils
Sunday 30th January 2011, 12:22AM GMT.
A £5.7 million haul of fakes including copied DVDs, computer games and bogus designer clothes has been seized across the Black Country in just 10 months, new figures reveal today.
Counterfeiters cashing in on the credit crunch have sent the value of the racket soaring nearly five-fold in less than a year.
Rip-off designer belts, England football shirts and Ugg boots were confiscated by trading standards.
Illegal copies of the latest Hollywood blockbusters and hit console games make up the bulk of the haul.
The figures, for the financial year to date, show a dramatic rise on 2009/10, when around £1.3m of fake merchandise was confiscated.
Since April, Dudley Council’s trading standards has seized goods worth £1.4m, up from £155,000 in 2009/10. In Sandwell, officers have uncovered around £4m so far this year, compared to £1m in 2009/10, while Wolverhampton has recovered £96,000, up from £24,000. Walsall Council has confiscated £193,000, up from £188,000.
The latest Staffordshire County Council figures also reveal £500,000 of fakes were seized between January and June last year.
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It looks as if Trading Standards jobs are under threat !!!
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It’s no surprise..low wages, long hours..recession upon recession..inflation..globalisation..banker bonuses..extortionate taxation..import tax. Last but by no means least, government waste stripping the very fabric of society to pieces.
No wonder the Yanks had enough back in the day. We weren’t so lucky.
People are thrown into (well-documented) poverty for generations, and we then wonder why articles like this appear. Start with the root cause, I say.
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Oh I almost forgot..how much LESS is alcohol in the Whitehall these days?!
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What in the 24 hour a day bars and restaurants you mean?
Never forget the phrase “not as I do, as I say”.
Normally I would be saying “yes but fakes are theft”, it’s just hard to say that when the real thing is so stupidly expensive. OK the materials MIGHT be better quality and there are questions about where the slave labour that makes the copies is based. Truth is that MAYBE some of the originals are made by poorly paid workers too.
With people counting every penny, and far from condoning law breaking, even this one has my normally “well that’s the law” outlook thinking, for once I do understand why people do this.
Whitehall alcohol PROBABLY has no duty on it either.
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I stand corrected (by my own research).
Apparently the MPS bars and restaurants are seeking to charge rates “comparable with a high street pub chain”. I assume this means that they will be given access to excellent food and beer and charged the price of a local large chain pub that might or moght not rhyme with FeatherPrunes.
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With the VAT rise and cut backs the government are helping to create a black market.
Look at the last war, the black market flourished because of the lack of goods now it’s the cost.
With more people being out of work and the tax rises on good because the transport fuel costs have been passed on what do you expect.
The longer this goes on the bigger the black market will get, it history repeating its self.
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