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Thread: Chinese Counterfeits, Fakes & Knock-Offs

  1. #16
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    Fake Moutai and Wuliangye...and toys!

    Most westerners can't stand Chinese liquor and I can sympathize with that. Although I will say that Moutai and Wuliangye are pretty good as Chinese liquors go, once you develop the taste for them.
    Police bust alcohol counterfeiters
    Updated: 2013-02-08 07:38
    By Cao Yin ( China Daily)

    Beijing police said they have busted 10 gangs involving almost 90 people suspected of producing and selling fake Chinese liquor in a recent crackdown.

    The fake liquor was copies of well-known brands, including Moutai and Wuliangye, police said in a statement on Thursday.

    The announcement comes one month after media reported on fake imported wine and beer being seized in "Bar Street" in Beijing's Sanlitun. Experts said fake name-brand alcohol is usually rampant in the days before major holidays.

    Police said they tracked the alcohol counterfeiters to their workshops thanks to tips provided by residents in Tongzhou district's Yongzhou township in December.

    Initial investigations showed the suspects used empty bottles they bought from regions neighboring Beijing, such as Tianjin municipality, Shandong and Shanxi provinces, and filled them with fake liquor.

    On Jan 25, police closed 40 illegal workshops and confiscated 6,060 bottles of alcohol, with a total value of 5.37 million yuan ($861,000), according to a statement provided by the city's public security bureau on Thursday.

    Eighty-eight suspects, all from Gushi county in Henan province, were caught in Beijing's Tongzhou district.

    Fifty-three of the suspects have been detained, the statement said.

    Some of the suspects could be sentenced to seven years in prison for breaching copyrights, said Zhao Li, a criminal lawyer with Beijing King and Bond Law Firm.

    Police did not say where the fake Chinese liquor was sold. The case is still under investigation, the statement said.

    In January, Beijing police detained five people suspected of supplying fake imported wine and beer to establishments in Sanlitun's Bar Street. More than 37,000 bottles of fake booze were seized.

    The suspects confessed they bought or recycled quality wine bottles and put cheap wine in them, aiming to sell the bottles at a high price.

    Ding Feng, a police officer at Sanlitun police station, said the station stepped up checks on Bar Street after the fake alcohol was found.

    Currently, only one police officer at the station is responsible for checking liquor in more than 20 bars twice a week, which is "quite a big workload", said Ding, adding more police officers will be assigned to the job.

    But reports from residents or customers are the main source of information for police, he said, admitting that police officers untrained in wine tasting face great difficulty in determining the difference between authentic and fake alcohol.

    Forgers also tend to produce counterfeit alcohol products in rented houses in urban-rural areas of the city and often move around, posing great challenges for law enforcement, said a police officer with Fengtai district's subbureau, who did not want to be identified.

    Despite the crackdown, it is not easy to root out alcohol counterfeiters, said Dai Peng, director of the criminal investigation department of the People's Public Security University of China.

    "As counterfeiters often use low-quality liquor in counterfeiting, which in many cases won't damage drinkers' health, the forgers will not receive punishment that is severe enough to stop them," he said.
    There's a vid on the article below that explains more...
    US Importers from China Sell Dangerous and Counterfeit Toys
    Created: 2013-02-08 14:22 EST

    US authorities on Wednesday charged five individuals and their companies for importing hazardous and counterfeit toys from China.

    They sold the toys wholesale, and from a storefront in New York City.

    “When you shop for consumer goods CBP imports specialists to make sure the products you buy are not counterfeit or unsafe.”

    But with all the shipments that come into the US, it is hard to ensure the safety of each product.

    US officials began seizing shipments from the defendants as early as July, 2005. In all- 33 separate seizures were made, totaling more than $10 million, according to ABC News.

    The defendants are accused of forming a new company to continue importing the toys when the previous one accumulated too many seizures.

    Some of the toys seized include SpongeBob SquarePants, Power Rangers and Winnie the Pooh.

    The toys either contained dangerous levels of lead, or were cheap knockoffs that could easily break, creating a choking hazard.

    On top of hazardous and counterfeit toy charges, the defendants are also accused of smuggling and money laundering.

    Two of the accused are naturalized citizens from China and the other three are Chinese residents living in Queens, New York.
    Gene Ching
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  2. #17
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    Fake walnuts

    Filled with rocks instead of nuts.

    Here's a vid in Chinese. You'll get the idea: 郑州惊现水泥核桃
    Gene Ching
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  3. #18
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    Slightly OT...

    Not quite counterfeits as it's not a brand name condom like Trojan. Or is it? Gotta chuckle though at the fact that they were too small.

    Ghana seizes 1m faulty condoms imported from China

    Ghana facing 'major public health issue' after condoms supplied to health service found to contain holes and burst easily

    Afua Hirsch, west Africa correspondent
    guardian.co.uk, Thursday 18 April 2013 09.28 EDT


    Ghana is facing a "major public health issue" after condoms supplied to the country's health service were found to contain holes and burst easily.

    More than 1m "Be Safe" condoms have been impounded by the country's food and drugs authority (FDA), which said they were also too small and not adequately lubricated.

    "When we tested these condoms, we found that they are poor quality, can burst in the course of sexual activity, and have holes which expose the users to unwanted pregnancy and sexually transmitted disease," said Thomas Amedzro, head of drug enforcement at the FDA.

    But the FDA said it was investigating how an unknown number of condoms had been distributed to health centres around the country, before the tests were conducted. "We want to get to the bottom of this, and to find out why all the condoms were not presented to us before they went out," said Amedzro.

    The FDA is recalling all Be Safe condoms on the market, and said it does not yet know how many have already been distributed. It is standard practice to conduct safety tests on condoms, many of which are imported from China.

    The FDA said the faulty Be Safe consignment was imported by Global Unilink Ltd, a Ghanaian company, which had sourced them from an Indian company named Harley Ltd based in Kenya. Amedzro said the FDA has traced the condoms back to the original manufacturer, Henan Xibei Latex Company Limited, in Henan province, central China.

    "This is a huge, huge problem," said Faustina Fynn-Nyame, director of Marie Stopes International in Ghana. "There will be a lot of unintended pregnancies as a result of this, and that means maternal mortality and unsafe abortion. Commercial sex workers also use these products [so] the consequences could be enormous."

    The companies involved in importing the condoms were not available to comment. But Be Safe condoms are reported to be widely used in Ghana, where they are distributed by state-run health centres. Previous batches are understood to have passed safety tests.

    This is not the first scare surrounding condoms in sub-Saharan Africa. Last year, South Africa recalled more than 1m faulty ANC condoms, which the ruling party had given away.

    "This is a major public health issue because of the implications," said Amedzro. "People use condoms to protect themselves against sexually transmitted diseases and unwanted pregnancy. If the condoms are not doing that, we could have increased [risk] of HIV and Aids, so that is a major concern."
    Gene Ching
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  4. #19
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    Worse then fake booze, walnuts or condoms

    Fake toasters!
    US Seizes 15,000 Counterfeit Chinese Toasters
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    Created: 2013-04-19 17:18 EST

    Counterfeit Chinese items are making headlines again. This time nearly 15-thousand toasters were seized at the Los Angeles/Long Beach seaport, according to US Customs and Border Protection authorities. The toasters had bogus safety markings on them.
    The shipments, worth nearly $300,000 in retail stores, were seized on March 8th and 28th.

    The toasters were found to have faulty safety markings by Underwriters Laboratories, or UL. The independent organization carries out tests to make sure there are no fire, shock or personal injury hazard possibilities with products.

    Almost 25 percent of commodities seized by Customs and Border Protection were worth $33.5 million last year alone.
    Actually the fake UL marking is pretty bad. One of my Kung Fu bros worked at UL as a tester. He always unplugged everything - EVERYTHING - when he left the house.
    Gene Ching
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  5. #20
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    rat, fox or mink?

    And we complain about horse meat?
    Shanghai diners fed rat, mink and fox instead of lamb
    Shanghai's residents have joked for years that the city's hot pot restaurants substitute cat meat for lamb.
    By Malcolm Moore, Beijing
    12:35PM BST 03 May 2013

    Not quite, according to the city's police; the lamb is actually more likely to be rat, fox or mink.

    On Friday, 63 suspects were arrested for a racket that makes horse meat in hamburgers seem positively palatable.

    For the past four years, the police said, the gang had taken the small mammals, doused their flesh in dye and preservatives, and sold it as lamb "at farmers' markets in Jiangsu and Shanghai".

    In a raid, nearly 10 tons of the counterfeit lamb was confiscated from a warehouse and the police said the gang had made profits of at least £1 million.

    "How many rats does it take to put together a sheep?" asked one user of Weibo, China's version of Twitter.

    There was weary resignation, rather than surprise, at the latest revelations in a city that is already accustomed to its food being cooked in oil dredged from the sewers, and where more than 16,000 putrefying pig carcasses were found dumped in a river that provides drinking water earlier this year.

    However, the Shanghai police took the time to give advice on the internet on how to spot fake lamb.

    "In fake lamb, it is easy to pull apart the fat from the red meat. In real lamb, the fat is difficult to separate," the police said on Sina Weibo, in a post that was forwarded more than 10,000 times.

    The arrests in Shanghai were part of a countrywide operation since the beginning of the year to reassure the public that their food is safe.

    A total of 904 people were arrested for selling fake, poisonous or contaminated meat and more than 1,700 underground butchers and processors were closed down.
    Gene Ching
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  6. #21
    Given the state of global affairs, it isn't a stretch to assume that in the not so distant future people who still eat meat will have to "expand" their horizons a lil. Personally, I see us going the way of Star Trek. Making rounded meals of raw materials. Printed food isn't that far off. Commercially, that is.

  7. #22
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    Counterfeit ambulances

    Some Chinese ‘ambulances’ not suited to save you
    3 days ago by Rachel Tackett

    It’s an ill-kept secret that China is full of various counterfeits and bootlegs. The truth of it seems harmless enough when it’s limited to Hollywood films but recently the existence of phony ambulances has been brought to light by Beijing’s Morning Post. Apparently, China’s emergency medical transport system has been dispatching ill-suited medical vans and pulling in quite a profit doing so.

    The story came to light thanks to a man named Lin, living in the city of Wenzhou. His wife had contracted a serious illness and was admitted into the intensive care unit of their local hospital, where she stayed for 40 days. It was then decided that she should be transferred to another hospital in Hangzhou, approximately 250 miles away. Obviously, she would not be able to survive such a long journey without appropriate medical care, and so an ambulance was called in. However, unbeknownst to anyone at the hospital, the artificial respirator on the ambulance was broken, and the medical staff on board had not been trained to handle anything related to terminal illnesses. Using a manual for necessary reference, the ambulance staff hooked the poor woman up to their broken respirator and drove off.

    A short time after departing the hospital, Lin’s wife was struggling to breathe. Within minutes she was coughing up blood. The ambulance was forced to return to the original hospital, and the patient was returned to the ICU. By the following day she was still in a critical condition.

    Lin was certain to contact the authorities about this suspicious, so-called ambulance. Surprisingly, the ambulance was legitimately registered with the government and belonged to a certain privately owned hospital. However, it was only certified to carry patients with non-life-threatening external wounds.

    When Beijing’s Morning Post asked the vice-chair of the hospital why such an ill-equipped ambulance was sent to carry a critically ill patient for such a long distance, the man laughed and shirked all responsibility saying that they had no real understanding of the situation. He blames the problem on an overall lack of management for ambulances.

    Why the city lacks the power to manage their emergency vehicles makes little sense, as they seem to receive plenty of funds. According to the owner and the driver of the ambulance which sparked all of this conversation, although this particular vehicle is owned by an individual, every time they are called to dispatch by the city’s emergency reception office, the person in charge of reception is given 20 percent on the transport fees as remuneration. These ambulance fees must be paid entirely by the patient, and are in no way cheap.

    I’m starting to think that if I’m ever sick in China, I might spring for a taxi instead of an ambulance. At the very least, the fare is cheaper.
    I have a few Chinese ambulance stories. I retold them in my book Shaolin Trips.
    Gene Ching
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  8. #23
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    Apple fashionistas

    I would so rock counterfeit Apple cloths. Well, maybe not the sweater shown, but if they had other stuff...
    Jun 14, 2013 8:00 AM EDT
    Because You Can: Artists Go Meta With Apple-Inspired Clothing
    By Lexi Nisita


    In a fascinating piece covering everything from corporate license to bootlegging, Dazed Digital explores the world of the Chinese-art phenomenon Shanzhai in an interview with Bidoun magazine's creative director, Babak Radboy — and it's enough to give you a serious head trip. Shanzhai, for the uninitiated, is essentially a movement that embraces Chinese counterfeit and pirated brands as a sort of rebellion against big business. It even has its own biennal (two years running, for that matter). "It’s this conversation between this massive production facility and late capitalism’s brand aura and intellectual property...It's kind of a punk in China," Radboy explains.

    The interesting thing about the Shanzhai movement and the people — urban fashionphiles like the artist Wu Ting Ting and rural factory workers, alike — who embrace it is that it's not based in cheaply made, low-quality goods sold off for a racked-up price (though, that's what most would associate with the term "counterfeit"). It's actually about the dark, ironic humor involved in repurposing the skills gained while manufacturing iPhones and Prada bags to make things like HiPhones and Dada bags: Fully functional models that actually offer some kind of agency in a world where, or as Radboy puts it, "you know how much they’re selling for and you know that no matter how long you work at that factory, you will never ever have this product."

    The medium is the message, and yet, there is no message in this new form of pop art with a darkly political twist. There's a kind of cheapness here that Radboy says is, in a strange way, even approaching couture in the looser sense of the word. Whatever you make of it, there's no doubt that this is a very compelling glimpse into the Chinese fashion psyche, something most of us gloss over and ignore when glancing at the tiny "made in China" label on our Dada Prada bags
    Gene Ching
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  9. #24
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    避孕套

    More on condoms

    A million counterfeit condoms seized
    By Matthew Day, Warsaw
    10:58AM BST 27 Jun 2013

    The seizure of the bogus contraceptives adds another name to the extensive list of forged branded products such as Gucci bags and Apple iPhones that roll off factories in China.

    Polish officials said the haul carrying the name of a Czech manufacturer was worth more than £42,000, and followers the seizure of smaller consignment in February.

    "It was not so much the product but where they it was coming from that was important," said Marcin Daczko, a spokesman for customs agency in Gdynia.

    "Basically, goods from certain places are checked more than others." Officials added that the condoms would have gone to a distribution point in central Poland, if they had not been stopped.

    The bust could fuel concerns of an influx into Europe of cheap and shoddy Chinese counterfeit condoms. Last month Chinese police seized 4.6 million forged Durex and Contex condoms in raids on a factory in Fujian province, and tests later showed the contraceptives were covered in a cheap lubricant.

    Other counterfeit condoms have been found to full of holes, made from cheap materials that split and tear, and produced in unhygienic surroundings.

    Health officials have warned that the bogus condoms could fail to protect people from unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases.

    In April Ghana seized over a million Chinese-made condoms and announced it was facing a "major public health issue" after tests revealed the contraceptives had holes and burst easily.
    Gene Ching
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  10. #25
    Oh wow... These people should be hunted down like dogs. Seriously.

    I honestly do the best I can to not buy things from China. It's unfortunate that the good people are tainted by the douchebags. But honestly, when it comes to goods, it's hard to tell the difference sometimes. Especially with electronic components. I can buy a batch of TIP102's from China and it's like a 50/50 chance they are worth the discounted price. I would rather just go through digikey or mouser and let them deal with the headache of vetting the source.

  11. #26
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    maybe theyre just catholics who want to take action, lots of catholics in Fujian.

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  12. #27
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    Counterfeit ATM

    dispensing counterfeit cash
    Counterfeit cash: Chinese ATMs distributing bootleg bucks?
    4 days ago by Rachel Tackett



    Of the many things that China is known for, one of them is most certainly bootlegging. Sometimes it works to our smalltime benefit by introducing us to almost familiar films and imitation iPhones, but only trouble can be bought when China’s system begins circulating bootleg bills.

    Recently, counterfeit money in China has reached a point where not only are people being fooled by fake cash, money-checking machines are too, as Chinese ATMs appear to be distributing bogus bills to honest civilians.

    Earlier this week Yahoo! Japan ran an article about how the use of counterfeit bills worth 100 yuan (US$16.30) is increasing. People who handle a lot of money on a daily basis, like taxi drivers and store clerks, are probably accustomed to this issue and can identify a fraudulent bill with ease, but to the unsuspecting layman, counterfeit cash could pass into their hands without them ever giving it a second thought. Lately, the quality of counterfeits has gotten so good that even the machines meant to weed out fake money can be fooled into accepting them.

    This would be less of a problem if the Chinese banks believed in it. According to Yahoo!’s article, a group of Japanese exchange students withdrew 3,000 yuan (US$490) from an ATM in China. They did not realize it right away, but of those 30 bills, seven of them were fake. However, when the group approached the bank with their wholly disheartening situation, the bank responded along the lines of “For an ATM to distribute counterfeit bills is unheard of,” and dismissed their claim.

    This was not the only instance. A second group of students encountered a similar problem and was met with the same dismissive response, being told, “There is no way that we have counterfeit money in our ATMs.”

    Admittedly, the existence and general circulation of counterfeit bills in a quickly developing country like China is not surprising in and of itself, but the thought that such bills have gotten mixed up in the banks’ system without any form of acknowledgement is a bit frightening. How unfair that these people must play an ATM the way one would a slot machine, hoping for a best case scenario of getting back the same amount of money that they first put in.
    Gene Ching
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  13. #28
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    Lion Dog

    Maybe they meant it to be like a Fu Dog, sort of a mythical Lion.
    Chinese zoo tries to pass off a dog as a lion


    Chinese zoo tries to pass off a dog as a lionA Chinese zoo is under fire for trying to disguise a Tibetan mastiff dog for a lion. The twisted scheme began to unravel when the supposed "African Lion" started to bark.

    Top image: An example of the very lion-like Tibetan Mastiff.

    The zoo, which is located in the People's Park of Luohe in the central province of Henan, is notorious for replacing exotic animals with fakes. Three other animals were labeled incorrectly, including two coypu rodents in a snake's cage, a white fox in a leopard's den, and another dog in a wolf pen.


    A Tibetan mastiff dog is displayed for sale at a mastiff show in Baoding, Hebei province on March 9th, 2013. Credit: Ed Jones/AFP/Getty Images.

    According to the chief of the park's animal department, Liu Suya, the zoo does indeed have a lion, but it's currently at a breeding facility. The dog, which belongs to an employee, happened to be housed at the zoo over safety concerns.

    A zoo patron named surnamed Liu wanted to show her son the different sounds animals made, but he pointed out that the animal in the cage labelled "African lion" was barking.

    "The zoo is absolutely cheating us," said Liu to the Beijing Youth Daily. "They are trying to disguise the dogs as lions."
    Gene Ching
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  14. #29
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    It really shouldn't have taken the dog barking for anyone to see that it's a dog, not a lion. It doesn't even look like a lion.

  15. #30
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    Those are stock photos in the article above

    I hear ya, Jimbo. Even with a lion haircut, a mastiff wouldn't pass.

    The article below has actual photos.

    Is this the world's worst zoo? Visitors' fury after staff in China try to pass off Tibetan mastiff as a lion and a mongrel as a leopard

    People's Park in Luohe, Henan province, has apologised and offered refund
    Chinese media accuse zoo of replacing exotic animals with common species

    By Becky Evans

    PUBLISHED: 07:41 EST, 15 August 2013 | UPDATED: 10:14 EST, 15 August 2013

    A China zoo has been forced to apologise after it tried to pass off a dog as a lion.

    Angry visitors to the People's Park in Luohe, Henan province, complained when the 'African lion' started barking.

    Zoo staff said they had pretended the Tibetan mastiff was a lion because they could not afford the real thing, local media reported.


    This Tibetan mastiff was kept in the African lion's cage of the People's Park in Luohe, Henan Province


    Visitors said they felt defrauded by paying to see an African lion and being shown a dog

    The state-run Beijing Youth Daily claims the zoo commonly replaced exotic animals with common species.

    Elsewhere in the zoo, visitors found a mongrel dog in the Timber wolf's cage and another pooch posing as a leopard in the big cat enclosure.

    Then in the reptile house, keepers had placed two giant sea cucumbers which they were trying to pass off as snakes.

    One customer called Liu said: ''They're cheats. I paid good money to see the lion and all I got to see was a dog.

    'The zoo is absolutely cheating us. I took my son there so he could hear the different sounds animals made but when we reached the cage where the African lion was supposed to be, the big animal in there started barking.

    'I paid good money for the tickets and I feel defrauded.'


    This white dog was being passed off as a Timber wolf, according to Chinese media


    This mongrel dog was in the leopard's enclosure of the zoo, that has since apologised to visitors


    The zoo is accused of replacing exotic animals with common species (pictured: a pair of animals, believed to be pigs)

    Another mother Liu Wen was also furious.

    She said: 'I had my young son with me so I tried to play along and told him it was a special kind of lion.

    'But then the dog barked and he knew straight away what it was and that I'd lied to him.

    'How can they tell such dreadful tales and expect to get away with it?'

    A visitor, who did not want to be named, said: 'I don't know how they've got the nerve to try it. They must think we are all stupid.'#

    One user of China's Twitter-like Sina Welbo service commented: 'They should at least use a husky to pretend to be a wolf.'

    Mr Liu Suya, chief of the park's animal department, insisted the zoo did have a lion but it had been taken to a breeding facility.

    As for the dog that was in its cage, Mr Liu said it belonged to a employee and had been put there 'for safety reasons.'

    A spokesman for the zoo said: 'We're doing our best in tough economic times.

    'If anyone is unhappy with our displays we will give back their money.'
    Gene Ching
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