Fakes a ripoff — and dangerous

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 08/12/2010 (5446 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

THAT goalie mask with a price tag that seems amazingly low? It’s a dangerous fake that could be pierced by a hockey stick.

That perfume that seems like the designer scents, but much less expensive? It’s also a dangerous fake, made with a hodge-podge of untested ingredients.

They’re just some of the counterfeit products RCMP Cpl. John Montgomery says pose a safety risk to consumers.

Montgomery is part of the eight-officer RCMP federal enforcement unit in Manitoba, dedicated to investigating hundreds of federal laws such as the Copyright Act. Investigators there have laid about 50 charges related to counterfeiting since last January.

“Anything that makes money can be counterfeit,” he said, adding that the majority of counterfeit goods come from China.

“It’s a safety issue. There’s no quality control.”

Montgomery said investigators in his unit have seized about $250,000 worth of counterfeit merchandise since December of last year.

Montgomery said holiday shoppers need to be wary about purchasing counterfeit items, due to health and safety risks.

Take the counterfeit goalie mask, for example.

“You wear a hockey helmet in Canada for a reason and you expect it to protect you to a certain level,” he said.

“Counterfeiters don’t care. They will put a lower-grade foam in there, or lower-grade plastic…

‘We have goalie masks here that a hockey stick will go through the cage… Whereas the Canadian one, they actually measure it so the hockey stick can’t go through. But the counterfeiters, they don’t care, they just want to make money.”

Investigators have seized items ranging from fake purses, light fixtures, auto parts and razor blades to sports jerseys.

“You don’t know what’s in that bottle of perfume. It’s not demineralized water. It’s whatever they have to put in there to fill it up,” he said.

Police have seized some of the counterfeit goods after they were flown or shipped into Canada, or from stores selling the fake goods.

Montgomery said some counterfeit products are also marketed on Internet sites such as Kijiji.

“The online business in Winnipeg is actually quite lucrative for these things,” he said.

Even items like a fake brand-name sports jersey should be scrutinized, Montgomery said.

“It is against the law… you can’t go and make a Nike jersey and sell it as a Nike jersey without owning the copyright to produce that Nike jersey,” he said.

“Even a fake Nike jersey, you have no idea what kind of dye was used to make that material, you have no idea what went into that, you don’t have any idea who made the thing: Was it made by a legitimate factory worker or was it made by a 10-year-old kid?” Montgomery pointed out. “There’s no child labour laws where most of these things are made.”

gabrielle.giroday@freepress.mb.ca