Revenue on Monday put on display a selection of the more than 9,000 pairs of high-end counterfeit Nike-branded trainers which were found on a freight shipment from China earlier this month.
The estimated retail value of the 9,384 pairs, consisting of 30 different designs of runners, is €1,736,040 or €185 each if sold at full retail value.
Revenue officers at the Dublin Mail Centre (DMC) put some of the fake Nike trainers on display on Monday to illustrate the issue of counterfeit goods. They look like the real thing with the packaging to match. Less impressive were the counterfeit Canada Goose, Gucci and Louis Vuitton items which were of obvious inferior quality.
The cost of living and better detection has shown a fourfold increase in the number of counterfeit items seized by customs officials from January 1st to October 31st this year, up from 13,235 items in 2023 to 51,614 this year.
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Some 17,908 of them were intercepted in the DMC and last week alone officers detected counterfeit goods with an estimated value of almost €25,000.
Revenue official Maureen Dalton said the most common way for a consumer to detect if they are buying fake goods online is to look at the price. If the price is substantially below either the retail or official website price they could well be fake.
She also warned consumers that buying from websites outside the European Union incur customs duties and import VAT will apply. This could adds a painful €97 to the price of an item costing €250 online if it is bought either from a US, UK or non-EU site.
The rise in online shopping, especially since the pandemic, continues apace. In the period from January 1st to October 31st this year, almost 44.5 million customs declarations were processed. This is an increase of almost 20 per cent when compared with the number of customs declarations processed in the same period last year.
Revenue is also becoming more efficient at detecting drugs arriving through parcels. So far this year staff at the DMC have seized almost 745kg of drugs with an estimated street value of €12 million.
The centre is patrolled by Sam, a seven-year-old springer spaniel who can detect minute traces of drugs in a mountain of parcels. He has been one of Revenue’s most successful sniffer dogs and uncovered a €12.3 million haul of heroin at Rosslare harbour in 2021.
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