Deadly counterfeit goods being smuggled into Australia by bikies and crime groups
The black market for counterfeit goods is booming for bikies and other crims with millions of dollars’ worth of fake, and potentially deadly items. See what’s been seized.
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Exclusive: Fake erectile dysfunction tablets, cosmetics containing mercury and arsenic, chainsaws that snap under stress and brake pads made of asbestos are just some of the dangerous goods being seized at our borders.
The black market for counterfeit goods is now more profitable than drugs and booming, with hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of fake — and potentially deadly — products being smuggled in.
In the past 12 months alone, Australian Border Force officers seized 141,000 of them worth more than $63 million.
Law enforcement agencies warn it could be just the tip of the trade as bikie gangs and crime groups pivot their global business models for lucrative returns. The OECD now estimates pirated wares are worth about 3.3 per cent of the total global goods and services trade.
Experts like former US Police Detective Sergeant, David Lake, who has spent years researching the criminal shadow economy — illicit, for-profit activity that exists alongside a country’s official economy — said drug barons were diversifying while still moving drugs.
Mr Lake said they were using their existing drug trafficking networks to shift the counterfeit stock in a market considered very high-profit and low-risk.
“Counterfeit goods are significantly more profitable than drugs and have a much larger consumer base with much less enforcement,” Mr Lake said.
Australian Border Force Assistant Secretary Customs and Trade Policy Kimberlee Stamatis said they had found everything from designer handbags to mobile phones, watches, power tools and pharmaceuticals being smuggled in all sorts of different ways.
“The criminals are getting very sophisticated and they are always looking for a new way to conceal the goods,” Ms Stamatis said.
One of the most commonly counterfeited items is a smartphone charger known to have caused fatal fires around the world.
It’s not the only potentially deadly rip-off.
News Corp has learnt:
* power tool company Stihl publicly issued a warning about dangerous copies of their chainsaws being sold on the black market — often with faulty or absent safety-critical devices;
* when put to the test, counterfeit brake pads — made of asbestos and compressed grass clippings — overshot stop markers;
* bogus car rims shattered in potholes even at low speed;
* knock-off oil filters did not work; and
* dodgy spark plugs had the potential to cause extensive engine damage.
Mercedes-Benz seized almost two million counterfeit products in 2021 during 650 global law enforcement raids.
Toyota busted two suppliers in Australia after discovering hundreds of fake parts. It also identified about 1200 online listings per month for knocked-off goods.
Ms Stamatis said officers were trained to spot the fakes but tips to the Border Watch hotline and intelligence helped them foil the shipments.
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“Fake goods are not a “victimless crime” Ms Stamatis said. “There is evidence to suggest the trade is exploiting vulnerable workers in modern slavery conditions and funding organised crime, including terrorism.”
The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime DOC has long warned that traditional organised crime groups like the Neapolitan Camorra, and the ‘Ndrangheta (Calabrian mafia) have a history of selling designer knock-offs and now have established extensive contacts with Chinese groups to import counterfeits.
Mr Lake said counterfeits are still mainly made in China but crime groups are expanding their manufacturing operations to Vietnam and India.
Despite the vigilance of authorities, fakes are still making it into the country.
In the past three years, South Australian police have made 187 different seizures of suspected fake Xanax.
Companies’ whose goods are being counterfeited often hire private detectives to launch a sting and find out who is behind the crimes.
David King from Lipstick investigations said he has been involved in a lot of operational stake-outs to find counterfeit goods.
“A lot of work that goes into finding the goods, buying them and then proving they are fake, and then trying to identify the source” said Mr King.
Investigator Ken Gamble has also looked at large-scale counterfeit pharmaceutical production in the Philippines, where major crime lords rule.
The drugs ranged from fake anti-inflammatories to sleeping pills, but Mr Gamble said the real money came from sexual enhancement drugs.
“It is a very corrupt industry. It is a big supply chain … they have to get people in ports and customs,” he said.
The Therapeutic Goods Authority has helped seize 340,572 counterfeit products in recent years including erectile dysfunction pills, weight loss products, ivermectin, skin whitening and nicotine vaping products.
A Canberra Newsagency was this year fined $26,640 for the alleged unlawful supply of counterfeit nicotine vaping products.
Brisbane man Jeffrey Croucher, the director of HealthHub247 Pty Ltd, was convicted on 35 charges of the unlawful manufacture, counterfeit, advertising and supply of sports supplements that contain banned and dangerous substances.
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