Luxury fashion shopping is not a hallmark of Riverwood, a working-class suburb located 18km south of the Sydney central business district. Aside from the occasional stand-alone store, the area has one main shopping plaza which houses a small litter of fashion boutiques, one offering its namesake Jox ‘N Sox staples and the remaining a selection of value bags, shoes and jewellery. Yet at the start of this year, a nearby residential home was found to be laden with the latest clothing and accessories from Chanel, Jimmy Choo, Gucci, Louis Vuitton and Prada. And on March 3, this was quickly removed.
The property was part of a broader raid coordinated by a local area division of the NSW police force, which saw the total seizure of $2 million worth of counterfeit goods ranging from sunglasses and apparel to embellished handbags. It was alleged that many of these items had been illegally imported into Australia and were destined for boutiques and market stalls around the city. Much like Operation Blackbird, which had taken place a month earlier and saw the seizure of 6000 counterfeit goods at market stalls in Haymarket, police had been tipped off by Brisbane-based Trademark Investigation Services (TMIS).
This business was established in 1991, after a series of successful investigations into Queensland’s counterfeit garment trade. It now offers a range of brand protection services across Australia and New Zealand, with 17 fashion firms on its books including surfwear stalwarts such as Billabong, Ripcurl and Quiksilver. It also provides services for members of the Anti Counterfeiting Action Group, an association of trans-Tasman businesses which include the local arm of Gucci, listed group Pacific Brands and eyewear brand Oakley.
Despite the recent spate of raids across domestic market stalls, TMIS managing director Ken Taylor says a major battlefront has emerged in the digital sphere. The internet has long been a source of counterfeit merchandise, but advertisements for fake goods have been known to crop up in ad spaces on social media websites such as Facebook. This provides vendors with a relatively cheap and high-profile avenue of alerting consumers to their collection of designer goods. Web giant Google recently announced it would take tougher rules on advertisements which promoted counterfeit products online.
“The counterfeit problem has grown with new technology,” Taylor concedes. “And the internet has caused an explosion. TMIS do investigate over the internet, especially since social networking sites have become a big problem. Clothing has always been an issue but accessories, jewellery, wallets, bags, sunglasses, makeup, fragrances are also major areas. Brands that are particularly affected are Louis Vuitton, Billabong, Gucci and Chanel [but] TMIS has grown to keep up with the problem.”
This includes forming strategic alliances with other specialist investigators and security providers, as well as monitoring the internet on behalf of its portfolio of fashion brands. TMIS employs 11 head office staff and has 65 sub-contractors around Australia and New Zealand, offering everything from surveys and market watch programs to the use of DNA labelling to prevent the production of counterfeit merchandise.
There are grassroots programs too – TMIS claims that with over 1200 markets operating around Australia, up to 80 are visited per month by company representatives. Unsurprisingly, Taylor identifies capital cities as major hotspots for fashion fakes. “It is supply and demand so the worst problems are near the biggest markets in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Perth.
“TMIS investigate, get evidence, identify the people causing the problem and report the matter to the police. We help search and identify the goods, prepare evidence and attend court. We also work closely with customs to seize goods. We conduct surveillance and locate storage places, shops and identify the counterfeiters, then report to police.”
Last year, Australian Customs revealed that counterfeit seizures at the border had more than doubled in 2009, to 1.1 million items with a potential retail value in excess of $47 million. In the two major market raids conducted by a local area division of NSW Police this year, detective inspector Chris Craner credited TMIS for its help in quashing the sale of such goods if they arrived onshore. It is likely the partnership will continue.
“City Central Local Area Command will continue to work closely with other agencies to target the suppliers and sellers of these types of goods in the Sydney CBD,” Craner says. “We have put stall-holders on notice ... the sale of fake, trademarked products is a crime [and] retailers selling counterfeit goods help perpetuate the myth that it’s okay to buy such products. The sale of fake fashion items robs legitimate businesses of millions of dollars worldwide.”
Taylor keeps it simpler still: “Counterfeiting kills invention and investment in product development.”