Two held for selling counterfeit versions of branded clothes online
The police arrested a man and a woman in Gurugram Sector 12 on Friday for allegedly selling fake versions of branded clothes online, after attaching tags of various popular brands
The police arrested a man and a woman in Gurugram Sector 12 on Friday for allegedly selling fake versions of branded clothes online, after attaching tags of various popular brands.
The suspects had registered a private company and shared their catalogue on social media to attract retailers with lucrative offers, the police said.
Commissioner of police KK Rao said, “Shopkeepers from across India used to approach them for their branded apparel. Their sale in the past one year has been to the tune of ₹1.5 crore, while other industries have been suffering huge losses due to Covid-19 pandemic.”
Rao said they had a wide network and extensive marketing teams to promote their apparels through social media platforms.
Police and anti-counterfeiting agency Brand Protectors India allegedly seized 1,000 pieces of shirts, jeans, tags and labels during a raid in a building on Sheetla Mata Road in Sector 12 on Friday afternoon.
Both the suspects — the company directors — were arrested for selling counterfeit branded apparel, the police said. The suspects were identified as Lakshmi Jha and Umakant Sharma of U3S traders.
The police team has allegedly unearthed a large network of distributorship and online marketing of counterfeit apparel.
During a market survey, the anti-counterfeiting agency discovered that an online wholesaler was allegedly engaged in the sale and distribution through all social media platforms of duplicate apparels of popular brands.
Dhirendra Singh, Director, Brand Protectors India Private Limited, said they mapped the areas where the duplicate apparels were kept for sale and distribution by the suspects.
“The suspects had earned nearly ₹2 crore in the last one-and-a-half years, and this was proved by their bank account statements recovered by the police during the raid. They had a Pan India network of over 300 retailers who source duplicate branded garments from U3S. The records were seized to establish the claims,” he said.
A case under Indian Penal Code (IPC) Section 63 was registered at the Sector 14 police station on Friday, the police said.