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Plain-clothes customs officers are seen arresting a South Asian man in Sham Shui Po in a now-viral video posted online. Photo: Facebook

Hong Kong customs arrest man suspected of selling knock-off handbags, deny accusations of entrapment

  • The accusations stem from a social media post featuring video of the arrest and a purported eyewitness account saying the man had been pressured to accept counterfeit goods by an undercover officer
  • Customs said it was still investigating, and condemned suggestions that officers had engaged in ‘evidence planting’

Hong Kong customs authorities have denied social media users’ accusation that it set up a 34-year-old man they arrested for allegedly selling knock-off handbags.

The Customs and Excise Department said it arrested the man in relation to five suspected counterfeit handbags with an estimated market value of about HK$2,000 (US$257) uncovered in a parcel from a logistics company during an investigation of fake goods in Kwai Chung on Friday night.

“Customs officers immediately conducted a surveillance operation on the delivery and arrested a 34-year-old male consignee under the Trade Descriptions Ordinance,” the department said in a statement.

“Eighty-nine items of suspected counterfeit goods with an estimated market value of about HK$40,000, including handbags, wallets and watches, were further seized on the scene.”

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It added that an investigation was under way, and went on to condemn online suggestions that officers had engaged in “evidence planting”.

The accusations stemmed from a nine-minute video posted by a Facebook user named Azmat Karavan that went viral on Saturday, and showed a man surrounded by two to four men in plain clothes who identified themselves as customs officers.

Karavan wrote in his post that the incident happened next to the Pei Ho Street Market in Sham Shui Po, where he saw an undercover officer asking a South Asian man to sign for a package, which the man repeatedly refused to do.

In the video, the man can be seen handcuffed and pressed against a van as officers question him, and is heard asking “Why are you arresting me?” in Cantonese.

“Who do the goods belong to?” an officer asks, to which the man says he does not know.

The officers eventually escort him to a van and drive off.

A purported eyewitness accused customs officers of pressuring the suspect to accept a parcel containing counterfeit goods. Photo: Facebook

A caption in the video accuses customs officers of “phishing for crime”, calling the arrest a set-up.

“He insisted that he didn’t want it, he didn’t know him and the goods didn’t belong to him; the agent turned to a pleading tone, saying that it was his ‘first day back at work’, ‘it’s always been like that’, ‘please sign for me’, ‘do me a favour’ and so on,” Karavan wrote in his post.

“The Indian young man was too disturbed and tried to get rid of him with his signature, as soon as his pen dropped four or five customs agents came out and arrested him.”



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