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Crackdown on fake kits
TRADING standards officers and the Premier League raided retailers in Oxford Street last week in a major clamp down on fake merchandise.
Intelligence work initiated by Manchester United football club led officers to souvenir shops that were the main offenders in what is called “intellectual property theft”.
Manchester kits made the club £51 million in 2006 – 30 per cent of total revenue – prompting the crackdown on their brand.
United’s work led to the setting-up of an anti-counterfeiting programme for the Premier League, which is now run by a former Lancashire police fraud squad detective who had been investigating on behalf of the Old Trafford club.
Premier League club employees assisted in the raids in an attempt to identify the counterfeit merchandise which the league say was “in several cases” almost imperceptibly mixed in with genuine items.
The officers made seizures with a total street value of £45,000. |
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