Hong Kong customs seizes bogus mooncake haul with Peninsula, Maxim’s logos ahead of Mid-Autumn Festival
- Authorities confiscated 49 boxes of counterfeit mooncakes and arrested three suspects earlier this month after posing as online buyers
- Traders offered bogus goods with packaging imitating five-star hotel group and prominent catering company, selling products below regular prices to snare buyers
Hong Kong customs has seized 49 boxes of counterfeit mooncakes bearing forged trademarks from the five-star Peninsula hotel group and catering company Maxim’s in the run-up to the Mid-Autumn Festival.
The Customs and Excise Department on Wednesday said officers had acted on complaints from the trademark owners and posed as online buyers, leading to the arrest of three residents – a man and two women – earlier this month.
Senior Inspector Chow Lai-man of the department’s intellectual property technology crime investigation unit said the 49 boxes of knock-off mooncakes seized in the operation were estimated to be worth about HK$16,000 (US$2,046).
The bogus treats would undergo testing at a government laboratory to determine if they were potentially harmful, she said. Chow added that customs was still investigating the source of the counterfeit goods.
The suspected counterfeiters earlier claimed to be selling Peninsula’s mini egg custard mooncakes and Maxim’s lava custard mooncakes, accepting online orders and conducting face-to-face transactions.
The fake versions of the mini egg custard mooncakes were offered at between HK$350 and HK$400, slightly below the Peninsula Boutique’s standard price of HK$448 per box.
Boxes of bogus lava custard mooncakes bearing the Maxim brand were also sold at HK$200, undercutting the price of the genuine product by 30 per cent.
Officers identified two online accounts offering the counterfeit goods, and posed as buyers online to arrest the suspect during a face-to-face transaction.
The department then raided a commercial unit in Mong Kok, where one of the women was arrested and officers seized a consignment of fake-brand mooncakes.
The second woman was detained in a separate operation in which officers raided a flat in Tsz Wan Shan, where they discovered more boxes of counterfeit mooncakes.
All three suspects, aged 28 to 41, have been released on bail pending further investigation.
Under the Trade Descriptions Ordinance, anyone who sells goods bearing a forged trademark faces a jail term of up to five years and a HK$500,000 fine.
Chow said she believed the department’s quick response to the complaints had ensured only a limited number of the bogus goods had been sold locally ahead of this year’s Mid-Autumn Festival on September 29.
The department said the packaging for the bogus goods looked similar to the real deal, but the genuine products had October 9 of this year as their best-before date, while the expiry dates for the fake ones varied.
Both brands placed QR codes on their packaging for authentication, but the codes for the fake Peninsula-brand mooncakes led to a bogus website and the one for the Maxim’s goods could not be used for verification, it added.
Chow said customs would continue to step up online sweeps and enforcement actions to combat the sale of counterfeit products over the holiday period. She also appealed to consumers to purchase goods from reputable vendors.
