European Union customs authorities seized a billion euros' (USD 1.3 billion) worth of fake goods in 2012, mainly from China and mainly through the post and concerning cigarettes and drugs such as Viagra, the EU said today.
About 40 million individual articles suspected of violating intellectual property rights were confiscated, the European Commission's annual report on customs action to enforce these rights said.
Most of these items were destroyed.
The value of the seizures was roughly the same as in 2011, although the number of articles -- which fluctuates wildly -- was well down from nearly 115 million in 2011.
The postal route accounted for about 70 per cent of cases, with almost one-in-four of all postal interceptions revealing fake medicines, namely lifestyle drugs ordered direct over the Internet.
