Customs officers bust syndicate supplying fake masks of popular Taiwanese brand

Customs officers say they have smashed a syndicate supplying fake cosmetic masks after arresting 12 people and seizing more than 5,000 boxes of counterfeit products.

The fake My Beauty Diary masks, valued at HK$266,000, were taken from a number of pharmacies and storage centres last week in what customs says is the largest such seizure in years.

"We believe we have smashed a syndicate of fake facial mask suppliers and arrested the main supplier," Guy Fong Wing-kai, customs' acting chief of intellectual property investigation, said.

Fong said the counterfeiters had mixed boxes of the fake masks with the popular Taiwanese brand's genuine products to make them harder to detect.

The seizure came after officers, acting on a complaint, took 245 boxes from a Tsim Sha Tsui pharmacy. They then found 4,500 boxes in two storage centres in Tai Po and Sheung Shui, and seized a further 370 in raids on two Yuen Long pharmacies.

Each box had 10 masks and sold for about HK$60, Fong said.

"The fake masks and the real ones are quite similar," he said, adding that the pharmacies sold the fake boxes with real ones at roughly a 7:3 ratio.