Eng/Nat

Hong Kong customs officers have seized almost four hundred thousand US dollars worth of fake Korean ginseng, crippling a syndicate which had been making huge profits distributing the product in the territory.

The officers arrested five men and four women in an overnight raid on premises in Hong Kong and confiscated equipment used to forge the labels on the ginseng cans.

Hong Kong customs confiscated a record four thousand five hundred cans of the counterfeit Korean ginseng in a series of raids on illicit factories.

Ginseng is a favourite tonic believed to gain much of its power from the fact that the plant root is often shaped similar to a human being.

But this ginseng is a low grade variety from China which was being marketed as premium Korean Red ginseng.

The gang had been forging the trade mark and labels of the expensive Korean red and sealing in cans for sale in Hong Kong.

Customs officers say the only way to tell the difference between the real product and the fake is by the price, as Korean Red is rarely sold as cheaply as this counterfeit product.

The counterfeit canned ginseng was sold to unscrupulous merchants who were taking a ten to twenty fold profit from their customers.

SOUNDBITE:
“..of course they will never admit they are the counterfeit products so they admit.. or they will tell the customer that they are genuine Korean ginseng.”
SUPER CAPTION: Ronny H.K. Tsang, Intellectual Property Investigation Bureau, Hong Kong

Mr Tsang says the forged labels and trademarks were so well done, the counterfeit goods were easily and widely distributed to the unsuspecting ginseng consumers.

This is not the first case of counterfeit ginseng.

Over the past four years, Hong Kong customs officers have confiscated fake ginseng and canning equipment worth close to two million US dollars.

The nine people arrested, aged from 19 to 62 years, face possible jail terms of up to five years and fines of 65 thousand US dollars, a depressing prospect for the former tonic sellers.

You can license this story through AP Archive: https://www.aparchive.com/metadata/youtube/3100faa517bf509fa3f94679187e71ca
Find out more about AP Archive: https://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork