Investigators called the case the largest food customs investigation ever charged.

The conspiracy allegedly involved changing labels on Chinese honey, some of it tainted with a banned antibiotic, and pretending it was imported from Indonesia, Russia, Malaysia and elsewhere.

The defendants knew that some of the honey was tainted and “went ahead and altered lab reports and sold the honey notwithstanding that was in violation of the law,” U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald said Wednesday.

For full article, visit SunTimes.com.

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The enforcement actions involved the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Office of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI); the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department; the Los Angeles, Torrance and Garden Grove police departments; as well as investigators from the Riverside County District Attorney’s Office.

All told, the searches resulted in seizing more than 47,000 individual items, ranging from counterfeit watches and wallets, to athletic shoes and workout wear. Authorities estimate the collective value of the merchandise seized during the operation to be more than $12 million, based upon the items’ suggested retail price had they been legitimate. The largest cache of counterfeits, estimated to be worth nearly $9.8 million, was confiscated during a warranted search last Thursday by ICE-HSI agents and Los Angeles Police Department investigators at a warehouse in Santee Alley.

For full article, please see U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement

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“This isn’t just an issue of right and wrong,” Locke said in a speech at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee, one of the nation’s musical focal points. “This is a fundamental issue of America’s economic competitiveness.”

Borrowing a page from the Hollywood and recording studios, Locke urged internet service providers and content owners “to work collaboratively to combat intellectual property infringement online.”

“Especially to combat repeat infringement,” he added.

At a press conference on Aug. 31, law enforcement officers unveiled some of the 47,000 confiscated items that has a retail value of $12 million. There were tables filled with fake shoes, sunglasses, watches, jewelry, blue jeans, T-shirts, purses, cigarettes, CDs, DVDs and iPhones. Labels included Burberry, Hermès, Chanel, Cartier, Louis Vuitton, Nike, Ray Ban, Oakley and Kate Spade.

The largest cache of goods was found at a warehouse near Santee Alley in the downtown Los Angeles Fashion District, where authorities said they confiscated $9.8 million in knock-off luxury handbags and Rolex watches on Aug. 26. The massive operation was part of a nationwide sweep called “Operation Fire Sale,” that targeted cities from New York to Los Angeles. Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Deputy Thomas Ferguson said the value of the goods confiscated in the nationwide operation was $16 million to $20 million, with Los Angeles providing the bulk of that. “We do stuff every month, but this was big,” he said.

For full article, visit ApparelNews.net.

Learn more about the industries OpSec Security works with to prevent the sale of fake and counterfeit goods, including apparel and luxury items.

That’s down from the $460,000 that the group spent in the year-ago period, but more than the $370,000 it spent in the first quarter of 2010. The association also lobbied the federal government on issues including a national broadband Internet plan and net neutrality. That’s a principle meant to ensure that phone and cable providers cannot favor their own services or discriminate against Internet phone calls, online video and other Web services that compete with their core businesses.

In the April-to-June period, the association lobbied Congress, the Federal Communications Commission, the Justice Department, the Office of the President and other agencies, according to the report filed July 20 with the House clerk’s office.

For full article, visit BusinessWeek.com.

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Commissioner Algirdas Šemeta will attend the 5th meeting of the Joint Customs Cooperation Committee (JCCC) in Shanghai on Friday. Top of the agenda is enforcement of intellectual property rights (IPR) and the fight against fraud.

Protecting IPR is of particular concern to IT companies, many of whom are concerned with China’s impact on the E.U. market. Just last month the European Commission launched an investigation into allegations of hardware dumping from China following a complaint by Belgian modem-maker Option.

For full article, visit PCWorld.com.

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For years, part of the cost of entry to China in certain industries has been pairing up with a Chinese company to form a joint venture.

Often, that involves Western firms agreeing to a “technology transfer”—sharing their technology or intellectual property with a Chinese partner—in order to establish the joint venture.

Even when joint ventures aren’t compulsory, some Western firms enter into them to gain access to local manufacturing capacity and contacts, and find they need to share technology as part of the deal.

But Western companies are increasingly expressing concerns about the safety of their intellectual property in such arrangements.

In July, Jürgen Hambrecht, chairman of chemical giant BASF AG and Peter Löscher, chief executive of industrial conglomerate Siemens AG reiterated foreign criticism in a meeting with China Premier Wen Jiabao about “technology transfer” rules, according to people present. The remarks echoed concerns by General Electric Co. CEO Jeff Immelt at a private dinner in Rome in June.

For full article, visit The Wall Street Journal.

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A letter seen by US security guru Brian Krebs invites leaders of high-level internet domain name registrars and registries to the White House to talk about online crime and fraudulent pharmaceutical websites.

A White House Office of Management and Budget spokesperson confirmed to IT PRO that the event was going ahead, but could not provide any more details.

For full article, visit ITPro.co.uk.

Learn more about the industries OpSec Security works with to prevent the sale of fake and counterfeit goods, including pharmaceuticals and consumer packaged goods.

Previous estimates by Andrew Gower for the IPO and the Digital Britain report placed it at between 7.3% of UK gross value added (2004) and 6.4% of GVA (2008). Various Digital Britain ministers translated this into £54bn per year as the annual value of the “creative industries”.

A UK IPO spokesman said there are two aspects to the work. One is to establish what is an intellectual property asset, and then to establish the value of existing copyright work. He said there were no reliable figures on the value of copyright because copyright works do not require registration.

For full article, visit ComputerWeekly.com.

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Many consider counterfeit goods to be predominately apparel and luxury items, which come with a hefty price tag that the average consumer can’t afford—therefore it is not a concern to the general population. In this stratum, we see designers such as Prada or Christian Dior whose handbags are frequently knocked-off and can be found being sold by street vendors around the world. Recently though, in this time of a struggling global economy, we are seeing more generic and off-the-rack products becoming increasingly popular in the counterfeit world—say Ugg Boots over a Gucci bag. The shift in counterfeited products can be attributed to wary buyers unwilling to spend as freely as they did just a few years ago.

Since mainstream products are becoming more commonly knocked-off, there is a causal effect on pricing. These products are such that consumers would conceivably spend easily and without much caution even when purchasing from the web. For instance, a person on the market for a luxury bag may either do so from the brand’s website or in a brick and mortar shop and would know that most luxury goods do not go on sale—so anything that is priced lower than the retail value might should send a red flag. Also, a largely inexpensive counterfeit bag costing several thousand dollars is unlikely to trick most into believing it is authentic. With mid-priced items, though, less thought is put into the legitimacy of the purchase and a slightly lower than average cost may not cause concern. This allows counterfeiters to not only capitalize on this market opportunity but also charge a similar price as the real deal. As more discounted sites pop-up, geared towards the economically savvy, it is likely that more ordinary consumer products will garner authenticity issues.

On another note, there has also been a change in the consumer psyche—where they seek products that are eco-friendly, sustainable, re-usable, and lasting. As the market grows for this niche product, counterfeiters may begin producing their wares under the guise of authenticity, and dupe buyers into believing they are purchasing goods based on ethical value when in fact they are doing quite the opposite.

With consumer spending remaining low and a new echelon of economic reality setting in, consumers will adopt or adjust their purchasing patterns and, in turn, counterfeiters will follow emerging market opportunities. This means that consumers and brands alike will have to remain vigilant and educated when manufacturing, buying, and/or selling goods. This is a ripe opportunity for brands, large or small, to enforce or recalibrate their brand protection programs.

Learn more about OpSec’s Anti-Counterfeiting solutions.