Customs officers have arrested 13 people in relation to the seizure of about 240,000 suspected counterfeit World Cup items.

The fake merchandise, including jerseys, footballs and sneakers, had an estimated market value of HK$159 million.

The department detected 50 cases, and carried out the operation between May 26 and July 19.

Divisional commander Ng Ka-chun of Intellectual Property Technology Crime Investigation said that the fake jerseys were priced 60 to 70 percent less than authentic ones.

He noted that the total number of items seized and their market value was much higher compared to the previous World Cup.

“The number of seized items and the value has multiplied. We believe it’s because the demand for World Cup merchandise this year was huge.”

Ng went on to say that none of the arrestees were connected to each other, and four of them were under the age of 18.

“Some young people purely wanted to resell their second-hand items that were unused to earn living or entertainment expenses. But they lacked relevant basic legal knowledge and sense of crisis," he said.

"As a result, they put the items online for resale before checking the authenticity for relevant items.”

Officers have made use of big data to target sellers of fake items on both social media and second-hand sale platforms, he added.


Edited by Aaron Tam