It might look like a good, cheap deal on a product – but it may not be the real deal. If so, what at first looks like a bargain could seriously hurt you – and not just financially.

Counterfeiters will fake anything that they can sell. Interpol has found everything from fake crash helmets that disintegrate when you fall off your bike to fake airbags that don’t go off in a crash and shampoo and body lotion made in factories where the only water supply is a disused toilet.

Fake alcohol caused the deaths of more than 40 people in the Czech Republic through methanol poisoning. When police raided the operation, they found materials that could have killed potentially thousands, and many more could have been seriously injured.

“You and I could go into a shop and buy fake alcohol without knowing it,” Michael Ellis, head of Interpol’s Trafficking in Illicit Goods and Counterfeiting programme tells Business Reporter over coffee at London’s Charing Cross Hotel. “If you are lucky you will go blind. If you are lucky you will get kidney failure. If you are unlucky you will die.” The stories he is telling are shocking, a dark world of counterfeiting far from the light-hearted caper of Only Fools And Horses – while someone might be thinking they’re just making a fast buck, they could be supplying you with a product that could kill.

Anti-counterfeiting and brand protection is serious business. Interpol has won awards for its work in this area, launching its ‘Turn Back Crime’ campaign in June this year, which is aimed to make people really understand what is happening with their money if they buy counterfeit goods.

He says: “There has got to be more understanding that this is not a Del Boy world. There are people out there who do not care, they have no concern at all for the impacts further down the chain – all they want is that money. We are trying to say to society, you have an informed choice of what you do with your money. Do you know where your money goes when it goes into that black world? Do you know what it is funding?

“There are hugely organised elements to this criminal activity, which generate huge funds for organised crime gangs and politically subversive groups.

“Illegal money is reinvested into other areas whether that be for political gains, drugs, human trafficking or firearms. There are many cases and examples of that.”

Last year, Interpol conducted about 10 regional operations on a global basis. “We brought together over 70 countries last year who were involved in those in those operations,” says Ellis – seizing around $174million (£105m) of counterfeit products in the process. “To me that means a $174million worth of money that has not fallen into the hands of criminals. On the black economy there is no inward investment, no generation of funds for the government. It is black money moving around. There are no regulations in that.”

Ellis has been involved in anti-counterfeiting for about 15 years, after a career as a detective with Scotland Yard dealing with serious international organised crime.

“The most unlikely of goods are being counterfeited,” he says. “No one sector is more vulnerable than another. The internet allows for any brand, any commodity to be counterfeited and distributed. The internet provides protection for the criminals to sit behind unseen.

“Heavy machinery is counterfeited, equipment for aircraft and railways, semiconductors for electrical equipment. There is fake food, wine, alcohol, rice and baby food. There are fake ball bearings that can go into machinery, even fake firearms and bullets.

“Counterfeiting does not belong to any one country. It does not belong to any one government, police force or law enforcement agency. It does not belong to any one brand.

“It is a shared problem which touches all corners of the world. It impacts society and government opportunities for revenue stream. It impacts on inward investments, it touches the old, it touches the young and I would be naive to say there is any one area that was more affected than another.”

It is the CEO who plays an important role when it comes to companies protecting their brands from counterfeiting. “My experience is if you have support at the board level then that filters down throughout the company,” he says.

“They have to ingrain their staff with anti-counterfeiting measures during the manufacturing and supply chain processes. They have to ingrain in them the need for protection of intellectual property. From a legal perspective that means having a trademark registered and patent-protected.”

Most firms have a multifaceted strategy that involves a robust legal representation and a proactive enforcement approach. Ellis says: “They know their supply chain, where the product should be manufactured, sold and imported. They know what supply routes it should be going through. Then there are lots of things you can do to have a secure supply chain.

“There are lots of things you can do in terms of security features, whether that is an overt feature being a hologram or some sort of coding system, or a covert, hidden feature – something that consumers would not be drawn towards, but that only experts could then see to ascertain if it was a genuine or a fake.

“You will see many companies that have a procedure for monitoring the internet – but, honestly, some of these websites are so professionally constructed that the consumer will really believe they are on a genuine website buying a genuine product.

“It is often not until consumers have parted with their hard-earned money and receive a shoddy item that they will realise they have been conned – or they have a product which they do not realise is counterfeit as it is such a high-quality fake.”

Awareness is vital to be able to “turn back crime”, says Ellis, and make people realise this is not a victimless crime. People are being hurt and killed as a result of these counterfeit goods and money gained from people is then being used to fund illegal activities.

Ellis emphasises the importance of firms having the support of their CEO – only then will they be able to combat it and use a multi-faceted approach to protect their brand.
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