Shanghai City anti-counterfeiting officers said they have intercepted two eight-ton trucks that were hauling 2,162 counterfeit auto parts that would have been passed on to consumers as legitimate parts for the Volkswagen-built Santana as well as Passat, Jinbei and Suzuki cars.
Officers from the Putuo District branch of the city Bureau of Quality and Technical Supervision said yesterday they still do not have an estimate of the value of the bogus car parts that were seized on Monday. But, said representatives from Shanghai Volkswagen Automotive Co. Ltd., the value of the fake Santana parts alone was 300,000 yuan (US$36,145).
Yesterday, as a follow-up to the seizure of the fake auto parts, bureau officers and police took into custody Zhang Peng-yong, owner of Guihang Auto Parts Store, who allegedly had 300,000 yuan worth of bogus products in his inventory.
His store was one of six that bureau officers and police raided yesterday.
Authorities have also seized five Jinbei mini-buses that apparently were used in the traffic-king of the counterfeit products. Eighteen people, believed to be con-signors and drivers, were questioned.
Bureau officers said the trucks that were stopped at the Qingmu parking lot on Zhennan Road early Monday morning were coming from Danyang in Jiangsu Province.
"Counterfeiters are becoming more cunning. They are using trucking firms and other transportation companies to move counterfeits directly from the factory to the retailers," said Liu Gencheng, bur-eau deputy director. "They're paying trans-port firms to haul their counterfeit cargo, making it more difficult for us to find and seize them."
Acting on tips from the Volkswagen anti-counterfeiting office, bureau officers said they spent a month monitoring the Danyang trucking firm. It delivered a large number of fake auto parts to Shanghai every weekday.
When the goods arrived, consignors allegedly had them sent to retailers "on a list."
(eastday.com November 15, 2001)
