Sharjah Economic Development Department seizes counterfeit HP products

After the raid, H.E. Ali Salim Al Mahmoud, SEDD General Manager, said:

"Commercial counterfeiting damages the public welfare as well as the national economy. As such, we have increased the number of monitoring campaigns and have instructed the monitoring teams to take full action against counterfeiters to stop this kind of activity."

"All praise goes to our monitoring teams who are taking steps to put an end to counterfeiting in the market, to the Sharjah police for their full cooperation and support, and to the public for their help in detecting counterfeit products. This not only proves great awareness among the public, but also that clients have every confidence in the department," added Al Mahmoud.

Commenting on the raid, Ali Fadhil of the Dispute Resolution Division said, "The counterfeiters were thoroughly questioned to establish the sources of the counterfeit products and to complete case proceedings so that specialized authorities can take full action to further restrict counterfeit activities, as these actions greatly harm the welfare of the public, as well as the national economy."

The counterfeit products seized by the SEDD's Legal Affairs Section included 1,939 HP stickers, 821,252 empty HP boxes and associated packaging, and 14,668 empty printer ink cartridges that would have been filled and sold to the consumer as original HP cartridgesa number of printer inks, as well as numerous other products essential to printing, such as ink cartridges, printer symbol sets and related cartridges.

Said Hamad Al Madfa', Legal Affairs Deputy Manager, "Counterfeit products are kept at the department's warehouse until a decision is made by the committee concerning these products. However, we always make sure to destroy any counterfeit products seized through monitoring campaigns or searches based on consumer complaints or sudden raids. So far, the department has confiscated a large number of products carrying the HP and Forward brands."