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Last year, Amazon identified, seized, and removed 7 million counterfeit products worldwide. This is truly impressive, but perhaps even more impressive is the number of would-be counterfeiters who get caught before they even have a chance to sell counterfeit items. The Crime Unit (CCU), established in June 2020, stopped more than 700,000 attempts by malicious actors to create fake sales accounts in 2023. That’s down from the 6 million fake account attempts that were thwarted in 2020, the year it introduced the CCU: 88% minimized in less than 4 years.
One of the main points of this dramatic improvement has been CCU’s proactive technique: not only keeping counterfeit products off-site, but also going after counterfeiters “wherever they are, to disrupt or dismantle their organizations,” said Kebharu Smith, director of CCU, in an interview with Retail Touchpoints.
“We’ve worked all the way down the chain of origin, all the way to trademark counterfeiting in countries like China and Turkey, and we’ve worked with law enforcement in the U. S. , Europe and China,” Smith said. “We have also prosecuted [counterfeiters] in partnership with small, medium and luxury brands. “
The figures, in the CCU’s 2024 Brand Protection Report, are impressive:
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As with many other types of loss prevention, much of the activity takes place on stage. Amazon’s reseller verification processes use document tamper detection, complex symbol and video verification, and other technologies to temporarily verify the authenticity of government-issued identification documents, to make sure they fit the user looking to sell on Amazon. Continued innovation in reseller verification includes ongoing innovations in device learning-based detection to deter bad actors from creating new Amazon reseller accounts.
In addition, in 2023, CCU implemented complex device learning models that use thousands of signals, adding awareness of brands indexed in Amazon Brand Registry, to intellectual asset infringements, adding complex visual assets. ” These can be logos, shapes, and patterns, adding logos that have been specially modified to avoid detection,” Smith said. Using equipment like giant language models (LLMs), which “excel at handling complex competitive tasks, allows us to stay ahead of new and emerging bad players,” Smith said. .
The CCU also works to educate the public about the risks of counterfeiting. Consumers want to know that “counterfeiting is not a victimless crime; this is related to worse schemes, such as human trafficking and money laundering,” Smith said.
To raise awareness, Amazon, in partnership with the International Brand Association and DECA, a foreign organization for top school and college students, introduced the Unreal Campaign Challenge. Students were asked to create 60-second public service announcement-style videos about the risks of buying fakes. ; The program has reached more than 177,000 CAED members worldwide.
And for those who think counterfeiting is just about fake Coach bags and other high-end products, Smith noted that counterfeiting efforts involve a wide diversity of product types and points of value. “We see all kinds of products, including clothing, household products and cosmetics, because counterfeiters are looking to find tactics to make a quick buck,” he said. CCU has partnered with express brands to prosecute counterfeiters, adding Champion, Canon and Brother.
“Brother was our first test in the European Union; the counterfeiter took valid ink cartridges and filled them with fake ink,” Smith said. “We have also investigated counterfeit toothbrush heads, as fitness and protection are a priority.
“Our partnership with Prada has been a unique and historic case, from which we have been able to extract a criminal conviction of bad actors operating in China,” Smith added. “The evidence [of the crime] came here from abroad, but not punished in China. “
Amazon has been fighting counterfeiters since at least March 2019, when it introduced its “Project Zero” anti-fraud initiative. The company has also joined forces to fight fake reviews, joining brands like Expedia and Glassdoor to shape the Coalition for Trusted Reviews in October. 2023.
Learn more about the industry’s efforts to combat reviews in this special report from Retail TouchPoints.
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