A woman has been fined £65,000 after she was caught selling counterfeit Harry Potter and Batman costumes from her home in Corfe Mullen, England.
According to reports, police raided the property last year, seizing nearly 200 suspect counterfeit fancy dress costumes, as well as business documents and computer equipment.
The merchandise – all of which breached the intellectual property rights of the bearer – also included Superwoman, Snow White, and Alice in Wonderland costume designs.
Appearing before a judge earlier this year, the court was told how the businesswoman also ran an e-commerce shop on trading platform Etsy, before it got shut down for copyright infringement in October 2017.
Pleading guilty to a total of seven offences under the Trade Marks Act 1994, which included selling, advertising and possessing costumes bearing illegal copies of registered trade marks, the woman was ordered to pay a Proceeds of Crime Act confiscation order for £65,000.
Commenting on the case, Ivan Hancock, Service Manager for Trading Standards at Dorset Council, said: “The sale of counterfeit goods can have a seriously detrimental effect on legitimate businesses selling genuine goods, as well as damaging the business of trade mark owners. We will continue to take enforcement action in appropriate cases and undertake the financial investigations necessary to recover proceeds of crime.”
The report comes shortly after it was revealed that the counterfeit industry is now worth around $10 billion (£8.1 billion) each year, with the most faked products being clothing, cosmetics, footwear and tobacco.
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