Officers seize five bogus Olympic torches destined for website auction
Five bogus Olympic torches, believed to have been smuggled from the mainland, were seized in Hong Kong when a housewife tried to sell one to an undercover customs officer, an official said yesterday.
The mother of three, 33, tried to sell the fake through an internet auction website, according to Samson Chiu Yuk-hung, head of the customs' Intellectual Property Investigation Group. The woman had claimed she would donate HK$50 from each sale to victims of the Sichuan earthquake, he said.
Preliminary investigations showed the woman began offering the fakes for sale on the Web at the beginning of last week, Mr Chiu said.
Customs officers from an anti-internet-piracy team began investigating the case after receiving a complaint last Friday. An officer posing as a buyer placed an order and arranged to collect it at Lam Tin MTR station on Monday.
The woman was arrested that afternoon after allegedly handing the fake torch to the officer at the station. Officers then raided her public housing unit in Sau Mau Ping, where she lives with her three children and husband. The officers found and seized four more fake torches in the living room. The woman has been released on bail pending further investigation.