Over $100 million of fake goods were seized by Chinese authorities. (Photo : Twitter)
Shanghai police reported that they raided a warehouse located in Taizhou and seized cosmetics labeled as Chanel, Christian Dior, L'Oreal SA's Lancome and Estée Lauder. The value of the fake items totaled to 827 million yuan.
State media reported on the incident and wrote, "Investigation into the online store shone a light on a chain that manufactures and distribute counterfeit top brand cosmetics in Henan, Heilongjiang, Guangdong and Zhejiang provinces."
The police were able to track the group from another arrest last year where another warehouse contained fake Amway products.
Chinese authorities have been cracking down on fake items that have been penetrating the Chinese market. There have been 170,000 counterfeit product cases and 20,000 arrests since last year.
The police also reported that counterfeit cosmetics are done through purchasing of chemicals online. Packaging and QR codes are bought from a seller in Guangdong.
The fake items only cost 10 yuan to make.
Last month, around 50 factories were raided. These factories were producing counterfeit seasoning labeled as Nestle and Knorr.
A statement from the Nestle China office said that they will investigate the matter and "product experts will be helping law enforcement representatives in identifying suspicious products."
Chinese food brands Totole and Donggu said that they will have an independent investigation and will continue its anti-counterfeit measures as what they have done since 2007.
The Chinese Food and Drug Administration was slammed on Sino Weibo.
One user posted, "Shouldn't the CFDA be the one that is punished? A whole village has been faking products for so many years. Can we still trust this department?"
"How many people have been poisoned by these fake products? Seasoning impacts so many lives, this is no game!" said another user.
The Food and Drug Administration released a statement, saying that the agency will "thoroughly rectify the problem of fake food seasoning production, and present the results of our investigation to the public in a timely fashion."
