Buying counterfeit products is “to support all the crimes that are condemned”, alerts the union of manufacturers in a report

The counterfeiting “offers organized crime of colossal gains, with little investment, a limited risk, and margins sometimes superior to those of drug trafficking”, estimates a report of the Union of manufacturers published Monday, and which France Inter was able to consult.

In a report published Monday June 16 and that France Inter was able to consult, the Union of Manufacturers (Unifab, bringing together some 200 companies) alerts once again on the links between counterfeiting and organized crime. “Buying counterfeiting is supporting all the crimes that we condemn”, support the authors of this report. It is a question for the Unifab to put pressure on the public authorities in order to again claim increased means of repression and more severe sanctions.

It is estimated that up to 6% of goods imported into Europe come from counterfeiting. The latter “Offer organized crime of colossal gains, with little investment, a limited risk, and margins sometimes superior to those of drug trafficking”, believes this report. Counterfeit software, “For example, barely costs 0.20 euros to produce and can resell 45 euros”. According to a report from the American patent office dating from 2018, “counterfeiting has become the most profitable criminal activity in the world, generating between 1,700 and $ 4,500 billion per year, on a national and international level”. This counterfeit sector is therefore largely invested by criminal networks.

“The use of cryptocurrencies has further facilitated these activities, by offering anonymity and low traceability.”

Unifab

in his report

According to this report, “All sectors of the economy are now concerned, from current consumer goods, to luxury products, including the food industry, health, transport or industry”List this study. Transnational criminal networks have made counterfeit “A structured, discreet and extremely profitable pillar of the world’s illicit economy”.

In its April 2024 report, Europol “Identifies 31 major criminal organizations actively involved in counterfeiting, 13 of which this activity has become the main source of income”. This situation is not completely new, but the report has the merit of gathering many examples. Thus recent operations “have made it possible to dismantle illegal sites for making cigarettes and cosmetics in France, while in February 2025, Spanish police neutralized a network specializing in the reconditioning of falsified wine for East Asia”details the report.

In the counterfeit catalog, there are clothes, toys, drugs but also spare parts for cars, planes or even wind turbines. The products are still flowing in physical markets, such as the fleas of Saint-Ouen, in Seine-Saint-Denis, near Paris. They sell a lot online and even infiltrate the legal distribution circuits, such as the second -hand market for smartphones. Counterfeit products “directly jeopardize health and human life”, When it concerns “Outdoor drugs, pills without active ingredient or containing toxic substances”.

For example, “The antimalarials” from counterfeit “Causes around 270,000 deaths a year in sub -Saharan Africa”. Criminal networks manage to adapt to get around the controls. Six clandestine cigarette factories were dismantled in France. False perfumes are sometimes assembled by undocumented workers from liquids from Eastern Europe and Chinese bottles. If importation is often in the hands of organized criminal groups, distribution can rely on small local groups, or even self -employed. The report underlines that the logistics chain and money laundering borrow the same circuits as drugs or prostitution.

Contrary to “In drug trafficking or weapons, which are the subject of severe sanctions, counterfeiting evolves in a legal framework still too lax, leaving criminals a considerable margin of action”, denounces the unifab. Counterfeit “Strengthens a structured criminal system that finances money laundering, drug trafficking, trafficking in human beings and even terrorist activities”. Unifab puts forward several recommendations to combat counterfeiting, in particular, “Awareness and empowering consumers, strengthening international cooperation and the legal framework, modernizing traceability and detection tools or even strengthening the means of police.”

“21.47 million counterfeit products were intercepted in 2024 by French customs, for an estimated value at 645.2 million euros”what represents “A fifth consecutive year of rising”. Moreover, “5.76 million counterfeit toys were seized in 2024, representing 26.8% of French customs seizures”. Counterfeit “costs 6.7 billion euros in direct sales loss in the French state, with 38,000 jobs suppressed each year”.