E-commerce retailer Amazon’s Counterfeiting Crime Unit recently worked with Italian fashion house Salvatore Ferragamo and law enforcement agencies in Yiwu City, China, to identify a counterfeit warehouse and remove hundreds of counterfeit products from the supply chain before the goods could reach consumers.
The fake products are belts and belt buckles. Amazon and Ferragamo said in a statement that they will continue to support local law enforcement to expose counterfeiters and prevent their products from entering the global supply chain. This is to help stop illegal trade at the source.
Amazon relies on cooperation in counterfeiting crime
“Amazon is grateful for the cooperation of Ferragamo and law enforcement in protecting customers from these counterfeit products,” commented Kebharu Smith, head of Amazon’s Counterfeiting Crime Unit, which was introduced in 2020. It operates globally and is made up of former federal prosecutors, former law enforcement officers, experienced investigators and data analysts.
“This should serve as a reminder that bad actors are held accountable as Amazon works with both brands and law enforcement agencies around the world to prevent inauthentic products from being sold across retail,” Smith said.
The case stems from a global investigation into certain counterfeiting groups attempting to sell on Amazon. In February 2021, Amazon and Ferragamo jointly filed two lawsuits in the US District Court in Washington, alleging that the defendants used Ferragamo’s registered trademarks without permission to mislead customers as to the authenticity and origin of the products.
Millions of counterfeits already confiscated
Over the years, Salvatore Ferragamo has implemented a number of offline and online anti-counterfeiting measures to protect its customers and brand. In 2021, more than 22,000 trademark infringing products and illegal content were removed from social media platforms and more than 130,000 listings related to counterfeit products were identified and removed by marketplace service providers.
Over the past year, Salvatore Ferragamo has also carried out regular checks on physical stores and initiated several administrative and criminal proceedings, both judicial and extrajudicial, with a particular focus on China. Thanks to increasing cooperation with local authorities, almost 450,000 counterfeit products have been confiscated worldwide.
In 2020, Amazon invested more than $700 million and employed more than 10,000 people to protect against fraud, counterfeiting and abuse. Technical tools check the identity of potential sellers and the authenticity of product listings. In 2020, only 6 percent of attempted new seller account registrations passed verification processes and less than 0.01 percent of all products sold on Amazon were subject to a counterfeiting complaint.