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Fake luxury products are popular with many young people – fueled by influencers who proudly show designer fakes from China on TikTok. Trade in the goods is also booming in Germany.
Influencer Louisa Burg beams into the camera. She is holding a package of new designer fakes from China. The 21-year-old is about to unpack the surprise box for her followers on TikTok. Sometimes there is a fake Kelly belt from Hermes, sometimes fake sneakers from Adidas, fake Cartier jewelry or an authentic cosmetic bag from Dior.
“I like the things,” says Burg, who comes from near Düsseldorf and is the advertising face of the Chinese app Hacoo, formerly Saramart. “If someone asks me, I won’t lie around and say I’m wearing real things here.” She also earns money from this because if someone from her around 50,000 followers orders the illegally manufactured fashion via a placed product link, she receives a commission. A lucrative additional income in addition to her training as a bank clerk.
Transshipment point for counterfeits in the Taunus
Bizarre plagiarism blooms not only on TikTok, young influencers and users also present fake and therefore affordable designer goods on Instagram and YouTube. The dealers themselves also blatantly advertise designer fakes there. You can write to them and even arrange to meet with them for a deal.
Some people apparently don’t care that criminal networks are behind the trade in designer counterfeits. For example, the packages that Louisa Burg receives twice a month do not officially come from China. An address in Friedrichsdorf im Hochtaunus is given as the sender.
On-site research shows that the address is a warehouse in an industrial area where hundreds of packages are piled up. Before the roller shutter goes down, an employee who wants to remain anonymous says yes tagesschau.de: “We are a shipping station here. We simply continue to deliver the packages.” One of his colleagues admits that the packages all come from China.
Plagiarism: Buying is allowed, selling is forbidden
Intentionally selling counterfeit brands is just as punishable as manufacturing them. This is a violation of trademark law. Those who advertise plagiarism could be accused of commercial trading. This would be a criminal offense if it were a violation of copyright distribution rights.
However, it is generally not a criminal offense for private individuals to buy a counterfeit brand, as the Lower Saxony Consumer Center reports. However, anyone who orders designer fakes over the Internet must expect customs to confiscate the counterfeit brand. Many people take this risk: according to an EU-wide e-commerce survey, over a third of all young people in the European Union have intentionally bought plagiarism in recent years.
According to the Chamber of Commerce and Industry, product piracy costs German manufacturers tens of billions in revenue each year.
Pay for earrings, get a bag
The Reddit.com platform is one of the largest trading centers for counterfeits. The users there buy, among other things, directly from dealers in China. There are groups there, such as “DesignerReps,” that are all about counterfeits. The users collect contacts to dealers and links to products – and make them available.
For example, a Louis Vuitton handbag that originally costs 1,000 euros is offered on the platform for $235. A half-baked status symbol “made in China” that shopping fans are on thin ice for at the latest when ordering. Because if you want the Louis fake bag mentioned, you have to provide incorrect information when ordering: The research shows that instead of the bag you are officially buying earrings, 235 of them for a single price of 0.94 euros. The customer uses this to pay the price of the bag (235 dollars), which later ends up in a package with her.
This package is also not officially shipped from China. There is an address in Dreieich (Offenbach) on the sender label. However, when we searched on site, the shipping station could not be found. It was an empty garage. A few years ago, the police in Dreieich uncovered a warehouse with over 20,000 counterfeit designer bags.
Luxury brands employ lawyers and detectives
Trademark lawyer Stephan Abel from Munich can explain why it is so easy to buy luxury fakes from China and why retailers can get away with it: “That’s because China is not in the EU. It’s very difficult to track from Europe.” said the lawyer who represents the French luxury brand Longchamp, for example. “If we obtain a judgment, it is of little value in China because it has to be enforced there.”
His customers alert Abel when counterfeits appear on the market. In addition to authenticity checkers, some labels also employ detectives who look for plagiarism. If fake dealers are found, the law firm will send them a cease and desist letter. “We are 100 percent successful in court in clear cases of forgery. It’s just that the people behind it are very difficult to identify,” says Abel.
Customs leads risk-oriented checks through
To ensure that the sellers do not get their counterfeit goods into Germany, customs is of course also involved. The authority uses its controls to combat illegal trade in counterfeit products. Customs officers stopped around 66,000 shipments between 2020 and 2022 because there was a suspicion that intellectual property rights could have been violated.
As a result, they removed 31 million counterfeits from circulation. The majority came from China, but also from Turkey and Hong Kong, as customs announced. Many counterfeits are then destroyed in consultation with the luxury labels.