Operation 'Trinchete' of the Customs Surveillance Service

• Three large pavilions have been located in Hernani (Gipuzkoa) and one in Bidart (France), and three people allegedly involved have been arrested.

• The merchandise – footwear, bags, clothing, jewelry and accessories – was brought into Spain from China to then be offered on Internet platforms, both direct and second-hand.

• More than a hundred major luxury brands have been affected

• The organization even falsified certificates of authenticity and purchase receipts from official brand stores and simulated hundreds of different profiles to make it appear that the products were being offered by different private advertisers.

April 5, 2024.- The Customs Surveillance Service of the Tax Agency in the Basque Country has seized more than 22,000 counterfeit products imitating luxury brands in industrial pavilions in Hernani (Gipuzkoa) and Bidart (France). The organisation responsible for the goods received the items from China and offered them on popular online platforms for direct sales and second-hand sales between individuals, thereby distributing them throughout Europe and thereby harming more than a hundred luxury brands.

The operation was initiated within the framework of the actions to control foreign trade operations that the Basque Country Customs Surveillance carries out as a State Tax Guard, both organically and functionally, under the Regional Customs and Special Taxes Department of the AEAT, after several shipments of high-quality counterfeit goods from China were detected in a parcel company.

Tracking the shipments led investigators to three industrial buildings in the town of Hernani rented by a company owned by Chinese citizens. In the warehouses it was found that products were received daily via courier companies.

Following these actions, Customs Surveillance investigators became aware of the possible existence of a fourth pavilion in the French town of Bidart. Once the collaboration mechanisms between the Spanish and French Customs were activated, French Customs officials went to the warehouse and also found counterfeit goods.

More than 22,000 counterfeit items – shoes, handbags, clothing, jewellery and accessories – from more than one hundred brands, all of them high-end and luxury, were seized in these four warehouses.

Sophistication in counterfeiting

In the case of luxury items, the counterfeiting also affected the product boxes themselves, the certificates of authenticity, the invoices, and even the organisation had falsified receipts of supposed purchases in the brands' official stores in Paris and other cities, between one and two years old. All this is done in order to offer the potential buyer an appearance of authenticity in order to be able to offer the products at a high price on Internet platforms.

These counterfeit items were marketed through carefully designed advertisements on the most popular peer-to-peer digital sales platforms. These advertisements, with detailed images of the items, were mainly intended to deceive potential buyers of used or semi-new products from prestigious brands. To do this, they created hundreds of fictitious profiles simulating the ownership of the product by private advertisers.

Once the product was sold, they labelled and sent the package directly from their warehouse to the final buyer anywhere in Europe. This form of marketing allowed them to distribute products without geographical restrictions, facilitating the expansion of their operations across the continent and making monitoring by the authorities difficult.

In order to give an appearance of legality, the three detainees created a company with registered offices in the warehouses that were raided, where they had an office with computers and printers to manage purchases directly from China and manage labelling and sales. The detainees and the confiscated items have been placed at the disposal of the 2nd Court of Instruction of San Sebastián.