Counterfeit trade costs manufacturers £15m

The Irish black market in fake branded sports wear, jeans and clothes is costing manufacturers £15 million a year, according to the managers of leading sports brands.

Ireland has a bad reputation with British and American multinationals which depend on their brand image for a large proportion of their profits.

"Dublin is classified in the same league as Bangkok by the Americans," said Mr Glyn Roberts, head of a manufacturers' organisation called the Anti-Counterfeiting Group. At a conference in Dublin yesterday, Mr Roberts said the counterfeit business was "very often allied to drugs, money laundering and organised crime".

About 10,000 items of Levis clothing, including jeans, shirts and jackets, were seized in the State last year, according to the Levi trademark manager, Ms Colette Bonner. Almost twice that number of items were seized in Northern Ireland in the same period.

The jeans are often imported and the labelling, including the red tag, is added here. Some Levi fakes carry the label "Made in Ireland" but Levis does not have a manufacturing plant here.

"Up until recently there seemed to be very little that could be done about it," Ms Bonner said. "But new legislation has helped and we're co-operating with the Garda."

Mr Garrett Breen, a solicitor in the intellectual property department of A & L Goodbody, said new penalties for selling copies include fines up to £100,000 and up to five years in prison.

The trade in fakes also included computer software and counterfeit car parts, "items which if they fail can cause injury or death", Mr Breen said.

"The legislation is there to combat counterfeiting and it's merely a question of using it."

Mr John Courtenay, managing director of Umbro Ireland, said he was recently involved in a raid on a south Dublin industrial estate. "We found one guy with plates to make 38 different brands in his car."

This counterfeiting operation was based on buying in blank sweatshirts, usually seconds, from manufacturers and printing the logos on to them.

Mr Courtenay said these operations can turn 100 per cent profits, with blank sweatshirts costing about £2, a further £1 for printing and handling of the shirts which could be sold to stall holders for £6. The customer ends up paying £10, roughly half the cost of the real thing. "And it's all done with no taxes, no pain and all gain."

Umbro loses about £1 million a year to counterfeiters in Ireland, Mr Courtenay said, with the Manchester United kit being the most popular fake. Most buyers think the goods are genuine. . "We've had instances where people buy them on stalls and then bring them back to the shops."

In the case of one fake Ryan Giggs soccer jersey the Umbro diamond had been stencilled into the number 11 on the back of the jersey.

"It was more elaborate than our own one," Mr Courtenay said, and an obvious sign that the jersey was a fake.

Most counterfeiters do not make fakes for the teenage market as most teenagers refuse to wear the cheaper copies, he said. "It's the pot bellies and the kids that the mothers buy the fakes for."

Mr Jim Boocock, head of corporate security for Kickers, said the company recently seized 30,000 neck tags from Pakistan and India ready to be sewn onto fake clothes. "It's the neck tag that gives the garment credibility."

The market for counterfeit brands tends to be seasonal, with some brands coming into vogue and the black market moving away from one brand if a manufacturer cracks down on it.