- The group bought the fakes from Turkey and foreign sites
GDBOP, the Ruse police and the city’s district attorney’s office have disbanded the gang that has been flooding the country with mint products for the past year.
The three bandits bought cheap fakes, which they sold with a 1000% markup.
The leader of the gang is from Ruse. From there he organized the entire scheme. There was a person who bought mints from Turkey or from foreign sites, mainly from China and Malaysia. After they arrived in Sofia, another member of the group delivered them to merchants all over the country. (See infographic below).
The group was disbanded on December 12. Then the anti-mafia department “Cybercrime” arrested six people. During the searches and seizures of three addresses, a warehouse and four cars in Sofia, 106 boxes of clothes and accessories with signs of well-known brands, documents and a mobile phone were found and seized. In four houses another 50 sacks and 71 boxes with clothes, shoes, accessories and perfumes were found, around 500 g of gold, an illegal combat pistol with 11 cartridges, levs and currency for a total value of around 220,000 levs, four telephones and documents , two warehouses and five cars on the territory of the Ruse region. The goods are T-shirts, watches, jeans, bags and anything that is bought in bulk in stores and on the internet.
What’s different about the band is that it’s like that does not make sales to end customers.
They delivered the goods to the merchants, who knew full well that they were shopping for men. The group sold them with a margin of around 200% – a fake T-shirt purchased for BGN 20 was sold to the merchant for BGN 60. However, the end customer paid BGN 200.
In addition to the fakes sold at various auctions, traders have also used online auctions. They have posted them on various sites in our country and on Facebook groups, as well as on foreign portals. Fakes advertised as genuine. The mints were well made and it was hard to tell they were replicas. Should there are hundreds of thousands of deceived users.
Three of the six detainees are accused of being part of a criminal group and were released on guarantees of 10,000 lev each.
Fighting crimes against intellectual property, counterfeit goods and money is a priority of law enforcement and internal security in the EU. In connection with this, a Europe-wide action plan against this type of criminal invasion has been developed, which is being implemented within the framework of the European Multidisciplinary Platform for Countering Criminal Threats – EMPACT. 24 EU Member States and European agencies, including Europol, Frontex, Eurojust, OLAF and others, are collaborating internationally under EMPACT to neutralize this type of criminal threat. The GDBOP’s Cybercrime Department leads the European group working in the field of combating intellectual property, counterfeiting and money crimes. The department recently received an international award for its good work.
