More than 35,000 counterfeit clothing from well-known brands were discovered from an Elche-based criminal organisation that supplied street sellers selling in the province’s tourism attractions.
The Guardia Civil operation ended with the breakup of the criminal organisation that imported the clothing from overseas and sold them to illegal merchants in cities such as Torrevieja.
Five persons have been arrested, including three Chinese men aged 62, 61, and 36, an Ecuadorian man aged 52, and a Moroccan citizen aged 55, for belonging to a criminal group and infringing industrial property rights.
Elche Investigating Court No. 5 took the arrestees and ordered their release, with conditions applied.
Elche’s two industrial warehouses yielded approximately 36,000 goods that underwent forensic verification as counterfeit.
The Guardia Civilclaim that if these products had been offered as real, the market would have suffered an economic loss of more than €780,000.
Illegal trade
The research revealed a well-organised structure with many levels of activity: importers, primary distributors, and secondary distributors.
The products were sent from abroad and delivered to two industrial facilities in Elche, where they were modified after passing through customs. The clothing have few changes from the originals, allowing them to be lawfully imported.
Once in national territory, these changes were easily reversed, resulting in a finish identical to the imitation brands.
“From these storage points, the network supplied street vendors operating in high-traffic tourist areas, such as the Torrevieja seafront, as part of the phenomenon known as ‘top manta ,'” writes the Guardia Civil.
The Torrevieja Local Police collaborated on the operation, and the Torrevieja City Council provided logistical help, allowing for the transit and storage of the confiscated goods despite the large haul.
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