Several years back, one of our investigations resulted in the seizure of several thousand counterfeit products. After reviewing the products to ensure they were counterfeit, the police packed them up and transferred them to the prosecutor’s office for safekeeping. That same afternoon, one of our investigators was visiting the courthouse for an unrelated issue and happened to see the defendant in our case speaking privately with the prosecutor.
Two days later, the prosecutor’s office contacted us, requesting another inspection of the seized products. Their internal expert thought the products might be genuine. We considered this an unusual request because we had already inspected the goods onsite and determined unequivocally they were counterfeit. We had even signed a statement to that effect before the products were seized and removed from the shop.
When we arrived at the prosecutor’s office, however, all of the supposedly seized items displayed before us were genuine. Their model numbers differed from those that had been seized. They displayed markings and stickers placed by the genuine distributor. They were also packed differently, sealed in plastic wrap instead of the cardboard boxes used by the enforcement team to haul the suspect items away.
We refused to continue the inspection, asserting that the items in the room were not those seized during the enforcement action. At that point the prosecutor became indignant and asked if we were accusing the office of corruption. The prosecutor demanded that we produce evidence of such a charge, and if we could not then we would be prosecuted for making false claims. The prosecutor even suggested that the defendant would be called to verify that the products in front of us were indeed those seized from his shop.
With no real options, we departed, and the case was ultimately dismissed.
That was not the end of it, however. Eventually, working with sources within the host-nation government, as well as with the U.S. Embassy, we managed to have the prosecutor in question removed. But what otherwise would have made a huge impact on the country’s counterfeit market was weakened by the dismissal of the case.