ARD report looks into business with luxury counterfeits

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A TV report by German public broadcaster ARD takes a look at the business with counterfeit luxury brands and the shopping for fakes on the web. Influencers for counterfeit products and brand protection experts provide insights into the illegal trade.

The trade in counterfeit luxury goods is booming, or so the impressions of the new TV report Expensive Luxury Fakes by the investigative format Y‑Kollektiv on the German public broadcaster ARD suggests. The counterfeit products might be bought as a status symbol, for example, if the originals do not seem affordable. Counterfeiting causes around 60 billion euros in damage in Germany alone, reports Hessischer Rundfunk in a press release on the new documentary. In the report, journalist Laura Kipfelsberger talks to a so‑called dupe influencer and an expert on trademark law, among others, to find out more about the background of this illegal business.

In the TV broadcast, which was published in April, the film team asks how easy it really is to get hold of high‑quality counterfeit designer items. The reporters quickly come across offers for suspected counterfeits on various online platforms – including Instagram and Reddit. On Reddit, for example, they find entire groups dedicated to discussing the quality of various counterfeits. There, they were also able to quickly find contacts and information for buying counterfeits. Sellers of counterfeit products can then be contacted easily and directly via WhatsApp, for example, to inquire about the parts you are looking for.

The sellers then shared photos with the reporters showing the counterfeit products they were allegedly interested in. In order to disguise the illegal trade, the journalists were in one case told to order another, inconspicuous product from an online store (the term hidden links is often used in this context to describe a ploy of listing a completely different, seemingly innocuous product in online stores, which then masks counterfeit goods). The reporters were told to order a total of 235 earrings for less than one euro each, in order to reach the purchase price of the counterfeit designer bag.

But it’s not just counterfeiting traders that are doing business on platforms such as Instagram or TikTok. So-called dupe influencers also publicly promote the purchase of counterfeit products. For the report, the team spoke to one of these influencers from North Rhine‑Westphalia, who works with dealers of counterfeits and presents their goods on TikTok. If her viewers then make purchases using the links she shared, she receives a commission – and thus earns money from the illegal transactions. However, the influencer dismisses the question of moral qualms.

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The counterfeits ordered for the report presumably come from China, but German addresses are given as the sender. When checking the addresses, the film team ends up at a company that apparently dispatches counterfeit products for Chinese companies and at a garage that appears to belong to a private individual. The fact that the counterfeiters were based in China would make it more difficult to prosecute them, according to trademark lawyer Stefan Abel in the report. Attempts to enforce a penalty in China would generally take a long time and often come to nothing. Lawyers and authorities would therefore have to start with the sellers based in Germany. According to Abel, such measures are usually successful, but it was difficult to get to the people behind.

The nearly half‑hour Y‑Kollektiv report is available online in the ARD media library. It is not the only broadcast on public television on the subject of counterfeiting and brand protection in recent months: German public broadcaster ZDF already reported on the production, distribution, and combating of counterfeit products in October 2022, for example, and on the counterfeiting trade on Instagram in November 2023.

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