The Guardia Civil have arrested three people for crimes against intellectual property after raiding various shops in Puerto del Carmen in Lanzarote and seizing 4,400 items of counterfeit products following inspections carried out with an expert who identified the fake goods.
The investigation began after the Guardia Civil received six denuncias (complaints) in May from lawyers representing various brands with trademarked names and logos, reporting the sale of counterfeit products that caused their clients economic damage.
During the investigation, they carried out the relevant checks on the shops that they were accusing, to clarify the criminal acts, verifying that the three clothing and accessories shops in question were selling large quantities of counterfeit products under high-value trademarks.
For this reason, they carried out three simultaneous raids of the shops, with the assistance of a judicial patent and trademark expert, who verified the quality and degree of falsification of the objects, seizing more than 4,400 counterfeit products, including luxury brand handbags, wallets, and football kits.
In addition, they found 85 different metal logos of luxury brands which were hidden in the payment counter, which are used to attach to bags and small leather goods at the time of purchase, to avoid displaying branded goods and evade inspections by the authorities.
The experts have valued the products seized at more than 466,000 euros, an amount being claimed in court by the affected brands from the shop owners as damages and loss of earnings. All the proceedings and seized objects have been passed to the judicial authorities in Arrecife.
