Legal News

West Sussex Trading Standards have made its largest seizure of counterfeit goods, after seizing fake Apple products worth £1.3 million from a warehouse in London.

West Sussex Council said that a phone call to Trading Standards six months ago relating to an overheating charger led to the huge capture of counterfeit Apple chargers, batteries, cables, headphones and adapters.

The investigation began when a concerned resident contacted Trading Standards, after purchasing a charger from a shop in Haywards Heath, West Sussex.

Despite being branded an official Apple product and priced at £59, the consumer was alarmed at how hot it became when charging her Apple MacBook at home.

Trading Standards carried out a test purchase at the Haywards Heath store and the charger was later confirmed to be unsafe and a fake by Apple.

The trail then led from Haywards Heath to another store in Brighton – and onto a warehouse in Kingston-upon-Thames.

An entry warrant for the London premises was executed on Tuesday, 1 August – and nine Trading Standards officers supported by Apple investigators and Metropolitan Police searched the warehouse, recovering counterfeit stock worth more than £1m.

West Sussex Trading Standards Team Manager Richard Sargeant said:

“This operation uncovered the highest value haul of fake products we have ever been involved in.

“It is so important for two reasons – firstly, we need to protect consumers from purchasing potentially unsafe products; and secondly, recovering £1.3 million of fake goods helps protect those traders who sell genuine Apple products from being undermined in the market place.”

West Sussex County Council’s Cabinet Member for Stronger, Safer Communities, Debbie Kennard, added:

“Hats off to the Trading Standards team for recovering such a vast amount of illegal goods – it demonstrates the value of reporting anything suspicious to us, either by phone or by email.”

Duncan Lewis Criminal Lawyers

Duncan Lewis Criminal Lawyers can advise at any stage of a public protection offence, including charges involving selling counterfeit goods, selling illicit alcohol or tobacco products, weights and measures issues, mislabelling offences, food hygiene breaches, selling restricted items to minors, breaches of health and safety regulations – and selling or offering for sale produce which fails to meet minimum quality standards.

There are Duncan Lewis offices nationwide and in most major cities – and Duncan Lewis can advise on police raids and premises inspections by Trading Standards or local authority fraud teams.

For expert legal advice on public protection offences, call Duncan Lewis criminal lawyers on 0333 772 0409.

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