Operation ‘Big Black’

• The seizure is among the largest of its kind in a Spanish port to date
• The goods were found stored in a total of 11 containers from China and were headed for the black market under the guise of a formal shipment to the counterfeited brands
• The value of the seized material, comprising jackets and shirts, is estimated at 4.9 million euros

 

25 November 2016.-The Tax Agency has seized a total of 185,838 fake designer clothes products in shipments from China in the port of Barcelona in the space of a month. The operation, known as 'Big Black', has led to one of the largest seizures of this kind in a Spanish port to date, one of the largest overall in recent years.

Operation 'Big Black' started on 13th September, when six containers of clothing arrived into the port of Barcelona from China. Within the framework of the checks being carried out to prevent counterfeit goods getting into the country, the Tax Agency's Customs Surveillance in Barcelona decided to select all of them for inspection.

Customs officers verified that both containers were sent by two companies that were not the well-known clothing brands. However, both the procedure and the route taken by the goods during shipping and importing was not a usual one, leading the Barcelona Customs Surveillance Unit to investigate further.

After verifying that the addressee, a textile company supposedly receiving the incoming goods, actually had no knowledge of the transaction and had not made any such order, the Customs Surveillance Unit decided to physically inspect the containers, discovering a total of 25,360 jackets and 101,400 shirts, all counterfeits according to the experts at the brands affected.

Subsequently, on 14th November, the ongoing investigations detected another shipment of five containers from one of the same Chinese companies. After proceeding to inspect the goods, a further 28,278 jackets and 30,800 shirts were seized, in this case labelled with other, equally counterfeit, brands.
 
The Customs Surveillance Unit of Barcelona has prepared the corresponding report and placed the merchandise at judicial disposal while awaiting its destruction. Meanwhile, investigations remain ongoing to ascertain further details about the source and circumstances of the shipments.