The nearly 600 bottles of shampoo seized by Cook County sheriff’s police this summer said “Head & Shoulders.” But the stuff inside was good for neither head nor shoulders: It was contaminated.
The shampoo was counterfeit, falsely labeled with a venerable brand owned by consumer goods giant Procter & Gamble. It was one of the first busts in Cook County involving potentially hazardous fake goods.
The traffic of counterfeit goods into this country, usually originating from China, is growing steadily.
Counterfeit-related seizures by the U.S. Customs Service rose 125 percent during the past five years ending in September 2005, topping 8,000 busts last year alone.
Increasingly, those fakes are ordinary household goods–shampoo, batteries, razors–not just the usual luxury knockoffs like Gucci handbags or the ubiquitous fake prescription drugs like Viagra.
“We are seeing a little more of a broader range of products counterfeited,” said Therese Randazzo, risk management director in U.S. Customs’ Strategic Trade Office. “There has been a growth in consumer products, everyday products.”
Sometimes those everyday fakes can be dangerous, too, much more so than a counterfeit Rolex watch or bogus Nike shoes.
For instance, the Head & Shoulders seized in Cook County could have sickened people with weak immune systems, said Penny Mateck, a sheriff’s spokeswoman.
The shampoo contained several types of “gram-negative” bacteria. Many species of gram-negative bacteria can cause disease.
In a separate incident this summer, Cook County sheriff’s police seized almost 60,000 phony Duracell batteries from a warehouse in Elk Grove Village. The batteries contained mercury, a hazardous material not used in real Duracells. They were also improperly made, and prone to explode.
The Duracell seizure led to the arrest of an Elk Grove Village wholesaler, a man believed to be a supplier for local convenience stores. In both cases, the fake goods were imported from overseas.
The two seizures marked the first time the Cook County sheriff’s police uncovered fake goods that could actually hurt consumers, Mateck said, adding that the department has been “very active” for years in pursuing counterfeiting.
There are several examples of potentially dangerous fakes outside of Illinois, too.
The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission in recent months has issued two recalls of extension cords prone to shock or fire hazards. The cords came with counterfeited Underwriters Laboratories (UL) labels.
Northbrook-based UL is an independent, non-profit testing lab that certifies the safety of thousands of products, from appliances to bulletproof vests.
The UL label was the 25th most counterfeited brand globally in 2005, according to the International Chamber of Commerce.
So, it’s not surprising that UL spends a lot of time working with the Customs Service to ferret out fakes. During the past 11 months or so, customs has made 105 seizures of goods with phony UL labels, 395,804 products in all.
“It has been escalating and escalating,” said Brian Monks, director of UL’s anti-counterfeiting operations. And UL, he says, has lots of company. “There is probably no industry in the world that does not encounter counterfeiting.”
Cigarettes, perfume, sunglasses, consumer electronics, auto parts–all have fallen prey to counterfeiting, a business worth hundreds of billions of dollars globally.
“If you don’t have a counterfeiting problem, you don’t have a successful product,” said Paul Fox, a spokesman for Cincinnati-based Procter & Gamble.
The company has more than $60 billion in annual sales, and about $100 million worth of counterfeit P&G goods are seized each year. “You can say, `that’s not much [on a percentage basis],’ but that’s not the point,” Fox said.
“Counterfeiting fundamentally undermines the trust consumers place in our brands.”
Duracell, Head & Shoulders and Gillette are the P&G brands that are most often counterfeited. A common thread among all three, and for that matter, all counterfeits: They’re made on the cheap and thus have poor quality, Fox said.
The fake Duracells seized in Elk Grove Village contained mercury because they were made with an old technology, one that hasn’t been used for years by legitimate battery-makers, Fox said.
Manufacturing shortcuts led to the tainted Head & Shoulders, too. “Whoever put this stuff together, they didn’t use sterile conditions,” said John Flaherty, a professor at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine.
Traditionally, flea markets and street vendors have been the main retail outlets for counterfeit goods. The Internet also has become a big distribution point in recent years.
But the probable destination for the goods seized recently in Cook County–convenience stores–is particularly alarming, said Caroline Joiner, head of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s anti-counterfeiting effort.
“The scariest part is when [counterfeits] are in the legitimate supply chain,” she said.
Yet Randazzo, of U.S. Customs, said counterfeits are increasingly making their way onto retailers’ shelves.
In August, for example, the Consumer Product Safety Commission and Dollar Tree Stores announced a recall of 600,000 counterfeit extension cords tagged with phony UL labels.
Virginia-based Dollar Tree Stores is a publicly traded company with about 3,000 stores nationwide. The bum cords, made in China, posed a shock hazard.
Earlier this month, another 42,000 counterfeit extension cords with fake UL labels were recalled. The Chinese-made cords, which posed a fire hazard, were sold at local drug, discount and grocery stores.
UL’s Monks said it’s very rare to find bogus UL labels at established retailers. Flea markets are a more common destination for the fakes.
Counterfeiting has flourished because it is highly profitable and less risky than other illegal activities, said Joiner of the U.S. Chamber, which is hosting its third annual anti-piracy summit this week in Washington, D.C. U.S. Atty. Gen. Alberto Gonzales and Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez are slated to speak at the event.
Anti-counterfeiting efforts have gotten a higher profile at federal agencies in recent years. But they’re also knee-deep in anti-terrorism initiatives. Plus, the distribution and retailing of phony goods is often the terrain of local law enforcement authorities. And they are already straining to cope with drug dealing and violent crimes.
Cook County’s anti-counterfeiting offensive is more the exception than the rule. “We want to see more [efforts like Cook County’s],” Joiner said, “but we understand it’s a resource issue.”
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mhughlett@tribune.com
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Tips on spotting a fake
1. Know what the genuine article typically costs. If the price sounds too good to be true, it’s probably a fake.
2. Know what the genuine article should look like by gathering information from the manufacturer’s Web site.
3. Look carefully at details of designs and logos to see if they match designs of genuine articles exactly. Some fakes use look-a-like designs that are easy to detect if you read labels carefully.
4. Check the quality of workmanship. For example, stitching on handbags should be even and zippers should work smoothly.
5. Buy from reputable retailers.
6. Beware of Internet vendors because products are not always as they appear online.
Source: U.S. Customs and Border Protection
