The E-commerce Organised Crime
The Taiwanese authority recently cracked down a group of 5 people who allegedly sell imported Chinese counterfeits (luxury clothings, accessories, etc.) to over a thousand Taiwanese buyers on several e-commerce platforms in Taiwan. This isn’t something unusual given that Chinese counterfeits can be found across the globe. What makes this news interesting is that the group is the first to be remanded under the Organized Crime Prevention Act, making counterfeiters officially tied with those who use violence to coerce, threaten others for a living.
By purchasing counterfeit goods from Alibaba’s Taobao, the group of 5 were able to make a tremendous profit of over $70M NTD by scamming over 1000 buyers on various e-commerce platforms, including Shopee, Yahoo, and Rakuten.
Taobao has become one of the biggest and most reliable source for counterfeit goods. The United States Trade Representatives has continually stated Taobao as “affiliated network of sites reportedly engages in substantial piracy and counterfeiting to the detriment of U.S. creators and brand owners, as well as legitimate sellers and distributors”
Jack Ma, the founder and CEO of Alibaba, has been marking himself as an avid fighter of fake goods. However, the results of these fighting counterfeiting campaign are still suspicious.
Source: 網賣仿冒品撈7千萬 首度依組織犯罪收押 – 聯合報