And in the backdrop to that indictment on Belize's compliance with international property rights law, today the biggest seizure yet in counterfeit merchandise finally left the customs warehouse.
Earlier this year 6 hundred thousand dollars worth of fake designer merchandise bound for the Corozal Free Zone was seized at Customs. It was a lot of valuable generic merchandise which Levi's and Dockers's wanted destroyed. They did at least until the American Chamber of Commerce had an idea. Here is the story.
Keith Swift Reporting,
This Tommy Hilfiger and this Levi's jeans pants have all the markings of the real thing: the label, looks, and even packaging but they are cheap knock-offs. These two are knock-offs and for that matter everything else in these 226 boxes are all fake Tommy Hilfiger, Levi's, and Dockers's merchandise. $600,000 worth of fake designer shirts, pants, and even perfumes have been stacked high in the customs warehouse until today. Today prisoners from the Kolbe Foundation moved in and moved out the fake merchandise.
John Burks, President American Chamber of Commerce
"In essence what we are going to do is pick the goods up this morning. Representatives from Kolbe will be here shortly with trucks. The goods will loaded by prisoners and they will be carried to a secure area at the prison and then the process will begin of removing the labels and altering the labels so that any goods cannot get back on the open market."
Instead of destroying $600,000 shipment of clothes, which apart from being fake, is all good - the US embassy today arranged for the Kolbe Foundation to destroy all brand markings. So the Tommy logo will be gone, the Levi's logo gone, and the Dockers's logo gone and left will be dozens of dozens of clothes in boxes upon boxes, which will be donated to charity. President of the American Chamber of Commerce in Belize john Burks says it beats the alternative, which would be to destroy them.
John Burks,
"You know these are fake goods and so the option would be for them to be destroyed which would be kind of a waste of a good thing."
Burks admits that this warehouse filled with fake merchandise is only the tip of the iceberg. Still he says it is a start and as consumers we should all care.
John Burks,
"It is not as good as the original and that is another reason why they are irritated about it because it is not the quality of a product and if you pay a legitimate for something that you think is Levi's or something like that and it falls apart shortly then you are going to think that Levi's or Dockers's is making an inferior product. And then you know again, even as far as the big picture there is the revenue that is denied the government of Belize. It is revenue that can be used for social services and different things that the government has to spend money on."
Once the tags and any trademarks are removed at the Hattieville Prison, half of the shipment will stay with the Kolbe Foundation while the Rotary Club of Orange Walk and the Teeny Tiny Hands group will split the remainder.