Hong Kong Customs says it will “continue to spare no effort” to combat online sale of pirated goods.
The head of the Intellectual Property Investigation Bureau, Louise Ho, said in the first half of this year Customs effected 99 cases of selling infringing goods on the Internet and arrested of 112 people.
Ho says the bureau has noticed a migration of selling infringing goods from auction sites to social networking platforms through which the crimes were committed. Two thirds of the cases resulting in arrests were from social media sites, three times the number recorded in the same period in 2014.
Among the people arrested, 45 of them were aged below 21, which was double the number recorded in the same period last year.
More students, in particular secondary school students, were found to be involved in operating illicit business. The youngest person arrested so far was a 12-year-old Form 1 student.
Ho noted that many young people involved in these cases had the misguided belief that as long as they declared the goods as counterfeit goods to buyers prior to sale transactions, there was no intent to defraud and hence they would not have any criminal liability. Some also had the misconception that it would be difficult to track their crime online.
Ho said Hong Kong Customs will sustain “vigorous enforcement efforts” against online sale of infringing goods during the summer holidays. She appealed to young people not to fall prey to such illegal activities to avoid any serious consequences.
Hong Kong Customs operates a 24 hour hotline for information about selling pirate goods: 2545 6182.