Customs officers in Xiamen, China, have seized over 14,000 pairs of counterfeited shoes that bear the logos of Nike, Adidas and Puma worth a street value of $15,000.

According to the officers, the pairs of shoes were confiscated after a local trading enterprise failed to show its legal papers and certificates. The trademarks of Adidas, Nike and Puma were used on 8728, 5400 and 696 pairs of shoes, respectively. 

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The office of Xiamen Customs has already communicated with the three respective companies and they confirmed the infringement on Monday. The companies have reportedly applied for the government agency's protection of their intellectual property rights. All the fake products have been placed under the custody of the Customs department for investigation.

With China becoming the world's workshop, most Chinese exports (70 percent) is made of manufactured commodities. According to US Customs, from 2008 to 2010, 87 percent of the fake commodities seized came from China.

Last year, a team under the National Standing People's Committee released a report stating that in 2014, over 40 percent of the online goods sold in China were fake or of bad quality. Furthermore, customer complaints inceased by 356.6 percent (over 77,000) from 2013 to 2014. The Chinese government has vowed to tighten its security with regard to online trading as there are no existing laws on how buyers can avail compensations or how to put online vendors accountable. 

According to Charles Scholz, Asia director of Kroll Associates, a security consulting firm, Chinese counterfeiting has already cost international businesses approximately $20 billion annually in terms of lost profits. "In the case of one consumer goods manufacturer, as much as 70 percent of the goods on the market are counterfeits," he said. He further claimed that attempting to put an end to this practice may require some fundamental changes both in the society and economy.

Tagscounterfeit goods, Nike, Puma