“I am writing to bring to your notice the danger of substandard counterfeit products flooding our markets during the COVID-19 lockdown and beyond, potentially causing a mammoth health and safety challenge” – K. Vikram Singh, Chairman, Association of Professional Detectives and Investigators (APDI) in a letter to Hon’ble PM Modi in April.
‘Counterfeiter’ – a very well-known species of criminals, it wouldn’t be wrong in terming them to be one of the biggest troublemakers of all times. They leave no stone unturned to utilize every possible situation in their favor. The outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic has been another opportunity to make a quick buck for them. But if we go deeper, we see that it is just not a quick buck, but an entire industry that is working to fleece on the reputation of the genuine brands. As per economics, scarcity is a situation where there is limited availability of a commodity. Currently the situation is such that the demand of certain commodities such as cleansing supplies, sanitizers, safety kits, masks, etc are at its peak, whereas there is shortage in supply. This is what is being cashed upon.
To understand the problem of counterfeiting or counterfeit goods, we can simply say that a counterfeit product is one that is intended to deceive consumers into buying a fake or fraudulent product by misappropriating someone else’s registered trademark or one that is deceptively similar to the said trademark without authorization and in order to gain illegal profits by riding on the reputation and goodwill associated with the trademark. The menace of counterfeiting has penetrated in every nook and corner of India and causing loss of revenue to brand owners and the Government at a large scale.
With COVID-19 afflicting the world at an alarming pace, the menace of counterfeiting appears to be manifesting itself not only as a threat to legitimate brand owners, but also is posing a major risk to the health issues which in turn is adding up the medical emergency that the countries is facing due to the sudden pandemic outbreak.
FIG: Posts on Twitter referencing both counterfeit goods and COVID-19 (Source: Europol information) Graph1
In September 2019, the Authentication Solution Providers’ Association (ASPA) has reported that India suffers a loss of over one lakh crore rupees per annum owing to the sale/purchase of counterfeit goods by consumers across all sectors. According to ASPA’s president Mr. Nakul Pasricha, counterfeiting in India is most prevalent in the pharmaceutical industry. Given that counterfeiting in the pharma/ medicine sector poses a major threat to public health and safety, Mr. Pasricha has urged the government to take adequate steps to mitigate such risks. He further stresses on the need for proper implementation of authentication solutions, enforcement, awareness and monitoring and envisages reducing counterfeiting in India by 50%, which would mean saving fifty thousand crore rupees per annum. Quoting from a report of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development , Mr. Pasricha states that unfortunately in India, trade in counterfeit goods has risen steadily in the last few years globally with trade volumes in fake products now standing at 3.3 % of total global trade, thereby causing brand owners to suffer huge losses in revenue.
With regards to COVID 19, the World Health Organization has recently warned against a surge in fake medicines, notably in the developing world, and Interpol’s global pharmaceutical crime fighting unit, Operation Pangea, has reportedly made 121 arrests across 90 countries in just seven days, resulting in the seizure of dangerous pharmaceuticals worth over $14m.
As per Interpol ‘Compared to the week of action in 2018, this latest edition of the Operation – Operation Pangea in March 2020, reported an increase of about 18 per cent in seizures of unauthorized antiviral medication, and an increase of more than 100 per cent in seizures of unauthorized chloroquine (an antimalarial medication), which could also be connected to the COVID-19 outbreak. The seizure of more than 34,000 counterfeit and substandard masks, “corona spray”, “coronavirus packages” or “coronavirus medicine” reveals only the tip of the iceberg regarding this new trend in counterfeiting. In addition, the operation discovered 2,000 online links advertising COVID-19 related items, and seized more than 34,000 counterfeit and substandard masks, as well as medicines advertised as “corona sprays, “coronavirus packages” and “coronavirus medicines.’
FIG: Main routes for counterfeit pharmaceutical and healthcare products trafficked to the EU (Source: Europol information) Graph2
The answer to this question is YES. In one-line, counterfeiters are preying on a worried global population. There is a spike in the numbers related to counterfeiting. According to Interpol ‘the outbreak of the coronavirus disease has offered an opportunity for fast cash, as criminals take advantage of the high market demand for personal protection and hygiene products.’
In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, counterfeiters particularly have focused on goods used in the fight against the pandemic including:
In fact, a thing to worry about is that as per Europol’s report on ‘Viral Marketing – Counterfeits, Substandard Goods And Intellectual Property Crime In The Covid-19 Pandemic’ it is suspected that the majority of counterfeit pharmaceutical products and active ingredients sold in the EU originate from China and India, which both host significant licit and illicit pharmaceutical and chemical industries.
Additionally, Interpol has put all member-countries on alert against fake or counterfeit products including disposable surgical masks, hand sanitisers, anti-viral and anti-malarial medication, vaccines and test kits for the COVID-19.
In past few days, several counterfeiting instances have been reported across the globe.
The key right now is to be VIGILANT. Indian Government has time and again said that there is no need to worry about commodities, as we have no shortage of essential goods. Panic in our mind is giving birth to chaos, which in turn is being utilized by these criminals. There is no need to anxiously stockpile. Additionally, it is also important that all the stakeholders join hands and do their bit in identifying and combating with any possible counterfeit product that they come across. Some simple steps that we can take to combat with the counterfeiting issue are:
An important thing to remember is we are all in this together! and we must do our bit to find a solution and combat the menace of counterfeiting.
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