Fake Puma clothes worth ₹5.8 lakh seized in Khar; 5 booked

A local representative of Gurgaon-based RNA IP Attorneys, who represent the Germany-headquartered brand in India, had filed a complaint about breaching copyright. Accordingly, he, along with cops from the property cell of the crime branch visited the five stores on Friday.

Mumbai: The Mumbai Crime Branch seized clothes worth ₹5.82 lakh, which were allegedly the ‘first copies’ of the international clothing brand – Puma. The cops booked the five owners of the shop in Khar, which had huge stocks of fake clothes.

Fake Puma clothes worth ₹5.8 lakh seized in Khar; 5 booked

A local representative of Gurgaon-based RNA IP Attorneys, who represent the Germany-headquartered brand in India, had filed a complaint about breaching copyright. Accordingly, he, along with cops from the property cell of the crime branch visited the five stores on Friday.

“We visited all the stores. All of them had a lot of clothes of our brand stocked. When the police asked them to present the documents that authorized them to sell out clothing, they couldn’t show them,” states the complaint.

Then, samples were collected for testing and other duplicate clothes like t-shirts, track pants, jackets, etc worth ₹5.8 lakh were seized.

As the attorneys of the company, its representatives work towards protecting its manufacturing copyrights in the country. As such they are always on the lookout for places that sell duplicate clothing of the brand by copying its logo through screen printing. The attorneys have their network of informants who let them know of places where such duplicate or fake branded clothes are sold.

“All the shopkeepers have been booked under the Copyrights Act. Samples of the clothes seized by the crime branch team have been sent for testing for authenticity,” said an official from Khar police.

He added that further investigation into the case is underway.