During the operation which took place at the beginning of August, German customs investigators searched almost 30 residential and business premises in the Rhine-Main area and in North Rhine-Westphalia. Authorities in the Netherlands, working in unison, raided a Dutch office. In total, the investigators secured around 180 pallets and several containers of fake toner cartridges that would have brought the counterfeiters 10 million euros on the open market. The fake cartridges violated the trademark rights of the Japanese printing supplies manufacturer Kyocera.
In addition to the counterfeit products, the customs investigators were able to secure large quantities of written and electronic evidence, gold and other valuables worth approximately 40,000 euros and to seize an additional 150,000 euros.
The ongoing investigation is centered on a total of 24 suspects from Germany, Iran, the Netherlands and Turkey with three alleged chief perpetrators already having been arrested. The criminal group is said to have bought used empty toner cartridges in Europe in order to refill them (some in Germany, others in China and Dubai) and then sell them as new, genuine Kyocera toner cartridges, via companies in Germany and the Netherlands.
The full extent of the financial damage caused by the counterfeiters is still unclear. “At the moment the sum of all damages is difficult to quantify. However, we are expecting an amount in the double-digit million euro range,” explained Hans-Jürgen Schmidt, spokesman for the customs office in Frankfurt-Main.
In total, the large-scale enforcement action involved around 200 representatives from customs, state criminal police, and the prosecutor’s offices. The investigators were assisted by product experts from the original manufacturer Kyocera. In addition to a semi-trailer truck and a 7.5-ton truck belonging to a forwarding company, the transportation of the counterfeits also required six trucks of the Federal Agency for Technical Relief.
© zoll.de
