Dolls and trading cards: customs finds nearly half a Million counterfeit toys

The smuggling of 462.102 fake dolls, and trading cards to Germany, the customs has prevented at Frankfurt airport. As the authority announced on Friday, was the contraband in the case of a Cargo from China on the 21. November, in two different shipments are discovered, both of which are from the identical Sender sent to the same recipient addresses. The officials opened when the control first, only a few of the packages whose contents should be according to the air waybill to glass work of art.

In the packages they made sure plastic dolls and trading cards, which were the original company logo of a well-known brand and a well-known manufacturer from the USA. Because of suspicions that it could be counterfeit, to be opened, and the officials of all the packages and counted a total of 8502 fake dolls and many collectible cards. The forgery suspicion was confirmed by the company – of the customs to estimate the prevented economic damage of around 386.000 Euro.

The main customs office in Frankfurt were opened in the past year, 5939 proceedings in respect of such plagiarism cases. The 549.354 the counterfeits had, according to customs data, a value of approximately EUR 18.7 million.