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On 20 and 21 July 2001, Customs officers of the Special Unit and River Trade Terminal Unit of Ship Search and Cargo Command found a total of 248,259 nos. of ladies' underwear and 9,100 nos. of pakar bearing suspected false origin labels in 3 containers importing by a motor vessel from Xiamen. The total value of the ladies' underwear was HK$3,800,000.00 whereas the value of parka was HK$900,000. Moreover, 10,560 nos. of video game sets and accessories bearing suspected forged trademark "SONY", "Playstation", "SEGA" and "Nintendo" were found in a container importing by a barge from Shekou. The value of the video game sets and accessories were HK$550,000.00. The total value of the goods in these 4 containers were HK$5,250,000.00.

The 3 containers of garments with suspected false origin were found to contain 550 cartons of ladies' underwear bearing false origin label "Made in Hong Kong" and "Made in Taiwan", and 218 bags of parka bearing false origin label "Made in USA". The ladies' underwear would be transshipped to Keelung, Taiwan, and the parka would be transshipped to Odessa, Russia. The goods with false country origin were handed over to Textile Fraud Investigation Bureau for further investigation and no arrest was effected up to this moment.

The container with video game sets and accessories bearing forged trademark was declared to contain "Video Game Sets & accessory" and they would be transshipped to Lagos, Nigeria. The Video Game Sets and accessories include 3,520 nos. of dual shock analog controller and 1,200 nos of analog controller bearing suspected forged trademark "SONY" & "Playstation", 50 sets of video game set bearing forged trademark "SONY" & "Playstation", 1,950 nos. of suspected infringing copies of "Nintendo" video game cassette, 1,000 sets of video game set bearing suspected forged trademark "SEGA" and 2,840 nos. of video game accessories.

Meanwhile, nobody was arrested in related to the detected offences.

The maximum penalty for importing goods with false trade description or forged trademark is 5 years imprisonment and a fine of 0.5 million whereas importing infringing articles under the Copyrights Ordinance is 8 years imprisonment and a fine of 0.5 million.

End/ Sunday, July 22, 2001

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