Reporter uncovers online counterfeit industry after infiltrating encypted chat group
Police carried out dawn raids after a journalist’s investigation revealed counterfeiters were dodging the law by taking their trade online.
The Manchester Evening News has written about the Bury New Road area just outside the city centre for many years.
It is a place known as the ‘Counterfeit capital of Europe’ and synonymous with cheap fakes and criminality. Previous MEN coverage resulted in the police and council launching a joint operation that significantly cleaned up the area.
But now an investigation by reporter James Holt has revealed that the counterfeit trade has moved on to Telegram.
After the MEN passed the information to the police they carried out dawn raids last week.
James, recently named young journalist of the year at the Regional Press Awards, said: “Having worked at the M.E.N for over three years and being deeply embedded in our communities, I knew about the reputation of Cheetham Hill as Europe’s ‘counterfeit capital’.
“For more than three decades, shops flogging fake designer clothes had been a popular destination for shoppers — who were often blissfully unaware of the illegal industry’s undercurrents of organised crime, exploitation and human trafficking.
“When GMP announced they were cracking down on it and shutting the physical stores for good it was a massive turning point, but simply just pushed the sellers into operating online.
“I was able to join an encrypted chat group under an alias and quickly and easily buy a fake Dior t-shirt. It was just one network of potentially thousands of others that specialist police teams are trying to monitor with great difficulty. Through our investigation work, I was able to uncover a returns address for parcels — which police believe was being used as a decoy location and the stock stored elsewhere.
“Following our intel, GMP acted on our tip-off, raiding the property and finding a number of counterfeit goods stashed in a dustbin outside. This reporting uncovered simply how the online market for fake goods is booming more than ever and even more difficult to trace through the use of encrypted chat services — but nevertheless our reporting prompted the police to act.”
