It is all kicking off: Police crackdown on counterfeit football shirts before the World Cup

The City of London Police's Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit (PIPCU) continues to combat counterfeiting and crack down on criminals who want to make money from illicit activities as the 2022 World Cup is well underway with England's recent resounding 6-2 victory over Iran.

In a series of nationwide searches, police discovered four tonnes of fake football shirts, estimated to have cost the industry half a million pounds. For crimes including the distribution and sale of fake goods, six people were detained, and £12,000 in cash was recovered.

The raids were a part of an enforcement campaign that the Intellectual Property Office organised and PIPCU officers carried out in the months leading up to the World Cup.

The Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit (PIPCU) of the City of London Police's Detective Sergeant Matthew Hussey stated:

"Major sporting events like the World Cup present profitable opportunities for counterfeiters because of the increased demand for items from fans who want to support their team."

"We frequently observe connections between the trade in counterfeit goods and organised criminal gangs. One of these groups' main means of income is counterfeiting, which enables them to finance serious crimes like drug trafficking and money laundering."

"We will continue to cooperate with our partners to take action against those who sell fake items. We would always urge customers to think twice before buying phony merchandise."

PIPCU officers searched four locations in Leeds with the assistance of colleagues from the North West Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit (NWPIPCU), and they found a significant amount of fake England shirts, FIFA World Cup badges, and £2,000 in cash.

Officers in Sheffield recovered £10,000 in cash from a residential property and fake football shirts from a storage facility. The products discovered in Leeds and Sheffield are estimated to have cost the sector £250,000. During operations in Bristol and Northampton, more fake shirts valued at £250,000 were seized.

Marcus Evans, the Intellectual Property Office's deputy director of intelligence and law enforcement, stated:

"Criminal networks are targeting the market with illegally counterfeit products, with little to no regard for their quality or safety, in an effort to take advantage of football fans' devotion to their favourite teams at the World Cup for their own financial benefit."

"We are happy to support the stepped-up enforcement efforts to crack down on the sale of such illegal goods, working collaboratively to help protect the public from this form of criminality."

Those that were detained have now been released while being investigated.

The potential threat that counterfeit goods pose

Globally, counterfeiting is a high-profit industry that affects all nations and industries. 3.3% of global trade is now made up of fake and stolen items. For the UK, international counterfeiting is becoming a bigger issue. It is getting harder to detect fake products at borders and keep them from reaching customers. Products that are subpar or contaminated can endanger consumers' health and, in some situations, even their lives. The economy suffers as a result of counterfeiting since real product manufacturers lose out on sales.

The illicit trafficking of counterfeit goods and the link to money laundering

The illegal sale of counterfeit goods provides criminals with a second source of income and a means of money laundering. Additionally, money made from the selling of phoney items may be used to finance additional false product creation or other illegal actions. Additionally, thieves insert fraudulent goods into the chain of legal supplies, which gives them access to "clean" money. This not only complicates efforts to combat money laundering but also puts users at risk of acquiring subpar goods.

According to a poll by the UK IP Crime Group, 49% of respondents to the nation's annual trading standards survey said they had worked on cases involving both money laundering and counterfeiting.

The link between counterfeiting and other organised crimes

The illegal sale of counterfeit goods frequently has ties to other serious crimes. According to a warning from Europol, organised crime is finding counterfeiting to be an increasingly alluring way to "diversify their product range." Evidence reveals that criminal networks smuggling people, drugs, and weapons also employ the same channels and operating procedures to move counterfeit goods. Counterfeit items are produced and sold using the proceeds of other crimes as well. Authorities have reportedly uncovered operations where money from drug trafficking was diverted into counterfeiting and where money from the sale of fake items was used to fund other criminal enterprises. Another trend that appears to be gaining traction is the exchange of illegal goods for similarly illegal things.

Previously, illegal goods were only purchased with cash, but organised crime groups are now more frequently exchanging things, such as trading drugs for fake goods and vice versa. These organisations decrease the amount of capital they need to transfer, hence lowering their exposure and risk, by employing counterfeit items as commodities for full or partial payment between organised crime networks.

The scale of the illegal marine trade in counterfeit goods is further demonstrated by data from the joint UNODC/World Customs Organization Container Control Programme (CCP). Although the CCP was first created to help police intercept drugs being transported in shipping containers, the variety of offences quickly recognised by authorities has grown due to the targeted abilities obtained via membership in the CCP. More than one-third of the containers that CCP teams inspected between January and November 2013 and then seized included counterfeit products.

Meanwhile, a poll by the UK IP Criminality Group revealed that 40% of respondents had worked on instances where counterfeiting was connected to drug crime and that 29% had discovered a relationship between the counterfeiting and overall organised crime.

Online sales are on the rise; creating new opportunities for organised crime

As the licit market for online sales of goods expands, so does the chance for organised crime groups to sell counterfeit items online. The exact scope of organised crime groups' involvement in selling such products online has yet to be determined.

However, when it comes to new avenues of unlawful profit-generating, they have proven to be exceedingly versatile and opportunistic. This is compounded by the additional difficulty of digital piracy of film, games, music, and other digital items as the internet advances as a platform utilised by criminal groups for illegal operations. This opens the door to not only increased digital sales of physical counterfeit goods but also to a bigger move toward unlawful digital product sales.

The value of counterfeiting as an illicit activity

Counterfeiting is a very profitable business, with criminals depending on the continuous strong demand for inexpensive items combined with low production costs. Because this is an illegal industry, calculating the level of counterfeiting is difficult, and estimates can vary greatly. The OECD estimates the annual cost of counterfeiting to be at $250 billion. This amount, however, does not include locally created and consumed counterfeit items, nor the significant volume of pirated digital products supplied through the Internet, which would raise the global counterfeiting total to "several hundred billion dollars more."