The Regional Director of Customs, Ricardo Aceituno reported on November 7, 2016, a container with fake sneakers was detected in Iquique, Chile.  The sport shoes were all copies of designs owned by important brands such as Nike, Adidas and "Chalas" Zodiac (similar to the Colombian "Zodiak" brand).

According to Aceituno, the Unit of Risk Analysis established a possible suspicious operation when reviewing and controlling the documents related to the transit of the products towards a check and control of the north portThe shipment was coming from China, and the fake products were hidden behind a shipment of napkins.

There were a total of 474 boxes with 16,454 pairs of fake sneakers, coming directly from China to the Free Zone.

The director also explained that the values of the operation did not correspond to the declared products and other contradictions and variables were raised in that context, such as weight and route declared.

Behind this load there were in total 474 plastic-lined carton packs, which contained 3,288 pairs of sneakers emulating different models of the Nike brand, in addition 3,936 pairs of sneakers with designs imitating logos of the German Adidas and other 9,230 pairs of Zodiac "Chalas" similar to the international Colombian brand Zodiak.

The destination of the container with the fake merchandise was an importing company located inside the walled enclosure of Zofri, which is not unusual because the port, a free zone, is located there. )

The shipment was declared with a customs value of USD 24,209, however, its commercial real value could be of around USD 31,786,395.42 Upon verifying the irregularities, the order was to suspend the shipment and the inspectors stamped the respective complaint, at the same time as the representatives of the trademarks were notified of the infringement of Industrial and Intellectual Property Rights.

Source: http://www.aduana.cl (Chilean National Customs Office web site.)

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