Press / Leaflets

LARGE COUNTERFEIT OPERATION IN TURKEY — IN EXCESS OF 1 MILLION EUROS SEIZED!

The Imaging Consumables Coalition of Europe (ICCE) has recently undertaken a raid at a production site in Turkey where a large volume of component parts, counterfeit boxes and holograms were seized. With the considerable and committed assistance of the army and police, Canon, Epson, Hewlett Packard, Lexmark, Oki and Panasonic were able to seize thousands of fake products.

The value of these seized products is estimated to be in excess of 1 million Euros! This is clearly of great significance to the manufacturers, whose revenues are being eroded by this criminal activity, but also of great importance to the local economy, where the affects of counterfeit operations on employment due to evasion of taxation due are well documented.

The information leading up to this raid was obtained through investigative activities that ICCE participated in during October 2002. As a result of this background activity, the momentum to close down further production sites for counterfeit consumables was increased, in particular by Hewlett Packard.

These recent raids are part of a concerted attempt to disrupt the counterfeit manufacturers and their suppliers, in Europe, Middle East and Africa.

An ICCE spokesperson commented, “The importance of co-operation between OEM's has clearly been demonstrated with the success of this investigation. The ICCE is an invaluable tool in the fight against counterfeit consumables.”

ICCE would like to thank the authorities for their commitment and support in pursuit of these activities.