UrBC, Yekaterinburg, December 5, 2018. Ural Customs identified more than 160,000 counterfeit items at their border control points in the eleven months of 2018, the customs’ press service reports.

Unscrupulous importers typically try to take counterfeit clothing and footwear items, toys, and perfumes as well as adulterated wine, tea, and coffee into the country. There are even bits of equipment on the list: for one, the customs officers recently prevented the import of 1,500 counterfeit condenser units to Russia.

‘All these goods bear the famous brands’ logos and trademarks but in actuality have no papers or authenticity certificates to prove they’re the real thing. This means no one can guarantee these products are safe to use,’ says Ural Customs’ Deputy Head Dmitri Perfilov.

This year so far, 33 criminal lawsuits relating to illegal use of means of identification for goods, services, or certain jobs (Article 180 of Russia’s Criminal Code) have been instituted already. Besides, administrative action was taken on two cases relating to copyright infringement (Article 7.12 (Part 1) of Russia’s Administrative Offense Code), on twelve cases relating to illegal use of means of identification for goods, services, or certain jobs (Article 14.10 of Russia’s Administrative Offense Code), and 117 cases relating to similar offenses.