08 June 2004 18:17
Russian police seize more counterfeit goods as market for them shrinks
Moscow, 8 June: Russian police have seized counterfeit products to the value of over R350m since the beginning of
this year, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry's Main Directorate for Economic Crime, Oleg Dvoryankin, told
ITAR-TASS today. He was speaking at the opening of the national exhibition "Defences against Counterfeiting
2004", at the National Exhibition Centre.
A hundred and eighty illegal workshops producing counterfeits were closed down in the first four months, he said,
leading to over 2,000 criminal and 10,500 administrative prosecutions being launched. Dvoryankin stressed that the
ministry has greatly stepped up its campaign against counterfeiters this year. "Compared to last year, all the
figures are up - we've seized more substandard goods and broken up dozens of criminal gangs," he said.
[Passage omitted]
Counterfeiters tend to target well-known brands, Dvoryankin said. The most common counterfeited goods remain CDs and
other audiovisual products, vodka and perfumes. Meanwhile, the market for counterfeit goods in Russia has shrunk by
about 15-20 per cent in the past year and this trend is continuing.
[Changes to the law are needed to step up the fight against counterfeiters, Dvoryankin said in a separate ITAR-TASS
report at 1223 gmt. The Administrative Offences Code will be amended to allow more time for investigations, and the
Interior Ministry and Procuracy-General are working on proposed changes to copyright-violation laws.]
[ITAR-TASS news agency] |
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