As recently announced, customs authorities in Hamburg and Cologne/Bonn removed several thousand copies of the Adidas Yeezy Boost 350 designer sneakers from circulation. The counterfeits of the strictly limited-production shoes were valued at more than 1.5 million euro, and were likely destined for sale on the German market or online.
The authorities at the Hamburg Harbour Customs Office netted 7.500 lookalike sneakers. The imitations didn’t bear a brand name, but violated Adidas’s trademark rights due to their deceptively similar appearance. The authorities‘ colleagues in the Cologne/Bonn Airport Customs Office secured 90 further pairs of counterfeited shoes.
In both cases, the counterfeits came from China. “These limited-edition designer shoes are seen as investment goods with considerable value appreciation potential,” said Bianka Glueck on behalf of the Hamburg Harbour Customs Office. As recently as April, the customs officials reported a large finding of more than 46,000 fake Nike shoes in a total of seven container loads (we reported).
