While Western police and customs services continue to focus on organised networks of counterfeiters, a new business model has emerged among Chinese fake luxury goods: pirate workshops selling directly to consumers, with no contact with the informal economy that underpins the sector. They are proving difficult to detect.
A growing trend is making life much harder for customs agents and specialist anti-counterfeiting investigators. Over recent months, wildcat operators who work outside centralised networks or major mafia-style syndicates have sprung up in several locations in China. These workshops produce their own goods without regard for intellectual property laws and sell directly to American and European consumers, often using third-party digital
