• March 29, 2024

Arrests over online sales of fakes

 Arrests over online sales of fakes

Police in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region of southern China said on Saturday that they had arrested four people suspected of selling counterfeit cigarettes online, according to a Global Times story based on a Xinhua report.

The arrests were made in September and October, but there was no explanation given as to why the story was being made public only now.

It wasn’t stated either what brands had been faked. Laibin City police were said to have launched an investigation in March after receiving information about the alleged online sales. According to the Times, three men operating in neighboring Hunan Province had been acting as agents, selling cigarettes via online payment platforms or messaging apps such as QQ, Alipay and WeChat.

They were said to have bought the cigarettes from a man surnamed Zhang in eastern China’s Fujian Province. The three agents were arrested in late September and Zhang was captured in Yunxiao County, Fujian, in late October. The police were said to have seized 77,000 cigarettes worth 133,500 yuan (US$19,348).