Hong Kong seizes $20M worth of counterfeit World Cup merchandise in a major sting ahead of the 2026 tournament
HONG KONG: Hong Kong officials said Thursday they had arrested six people in a World Cup fake merchandise sting involving almost $20 million of counterfeit goods.
Eighty percent of the items seized were intended for export to the Americas, where the tournament kicks off Thursday, authorities said.
Customs officers said they had seized about 230,000 items, including 30,000 suspected fake jerseys, with an estimated market value of around HK$156 million ($19.9 million).
Some of the goods were seized at border crossings connecting Hong Kong with mainland China.
Many of the shirts seized were “highly authentic-looking”, said Wayne Chung, an official from the city’s intellectual property investigation bureau.
“General customers would find it hard to distinguish the fakes from the real ones,” he added.
Some shirts “deliberately replicate the 3D texture found on the fabric of genuine kits, whilst some feature brand tags and are packaged individually”, he said.
Hong Kong officials said the smuggling activities were linked to the recent surge in demand from football fans.
They warned they would step up enforcement efforts.
In March, customs officers seized another batch of counterfeit shirts, including jerseys of defending world champions Argentina.
This year’s competition, co-hosted by Mexico, Canada and the United States, is the biggest World Cup in history, finishing in New Jersey on July 19.
