A group of criminals produced counterfeit chocolates in a workshop renovated from a private house in Wuhu, Anhui Province. A box of counterfeit chocolates costing about 300 yuan was eventually sold to lower-level wholesalers for more than 500 yuan, and was resold at the first level. Finally, when sold to a wedding candy shop, the price can be as high as more than 700 yuan per box. In the end, the crime occurred because the owner of a wedding shop sent counterfeit chocolates to a regular manufacturer for authenticity testing. The police seized more than 300,000 counterfeit brand-name chocolates in one fell swoop, involving tens of millions of yuan. The day before yesterday morning, the People's Court of Xinwu District, Wuxi City issued the first-instance verdict on this extremely serious "counterfeit famous brand chocolate case". Zhang and other eight defendants involved in the case were sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment ranging from one to five years, and some were suspended and fined. The fines ranged from 10,000 yuan to 1.85 million yuan, and the total amount of fines imposed on 8 people was 6.12 million yuan.
The chocolate tasted wrong and was tested to be counterfeit
In February 2015, Boss Ji of a wedding candy shop in Wujin District, Changzhou City received multiple complaints from customers about the products he sold. Dove chocolate doesn't taste right. Therefore, Boss Ji called the middle wholesaler Xu, but Xu said that "there is no problem with the product." Boss Ji contacted the Chinese manufacturer of Dove chocolate and mailed the chocolate he wholesaled from Xu as a sample. The test results showed that these "Dove" chocolates were all fakes.
The Chinese manufacturer of Dove immediately reported the incident to its parent company, Mars Group of the United States, and called the police in Wuxi. Wuxi police investigation revealed that the counterfeit chocolates sold by Xu were wholesaled from the candy shop opened by Hong in Wuxi Tangnan Mall. The police followed the clues all the way and discovered that behind this was a huge case of chocolate manufacturers and sellers of internationally renowned brands such as "Dove" and "Ferrero" across Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Anhui.
The owner of the wedding candy shop buys wedding candy in large quantities and can earn hundreds of yuan by reselling a box.
Hong from Yancheng started selling wedding candy in Wuxi Tangnan Mall ten years ago. In 2014, Hong met Wang from Anhui who came to promote "Dove". The chocolate Wang brought was said to be homemade and cheap. Hong could see that Wang’s chocolates could be fake and real, and the profits behind them were high.
So, in less than half a year from October 2014 to March 2015, Hong purchased 749 boxes of counterfeit "Dove" chocolate from Wang at a price of more than 500 yuan per box. Later, Hong sold the counterfeit "Dove" chocolate to Xu from Changzhou at a price of more than 600 yuan per box, and Xu sold it to the owner of Wujin Wedding Candy Shop Ji at a price of more than 700 yuan per box. In addition, Qian, the owner of a wedding candy shop in Nanjing, also bought and sold about 600 boxes of counterfeit "Dove" chocolates at the same low price from another Anhui businessman named Zhang who came to promote "Dove" chocolate. The reporter learned that the wholesale price of this type of authentic "Dove" chocolate on the market is more than 800 yuan per box, and the retail price is more than 900 yuan.
Zhang, Wang, and Xu are all from Wuhu, Anhui. The three of them had foreign debts and were short on money. The three *** jointly invested 500,000 yuan, and since 2014 they have successively recruited people to produce counterfeit "Dove" brand chocolate in a workshop renovated from a private house in Wuhu. It is understood that Zhang received 350,000 yuan in dividends at the end of the first month, while Wang and Xu each received 170,000 yuan. Later, due to the uneven distribution of interests, conflicts arose between Wang and Zhang. Wang asked his relatives to set up a separate business, and found Huang's advertising company in Wenzhou, Zhejiang to make "Ferrero Rocher" chocolates, and sold the fake "Ferrero Rocher" chocolates to Hong, Qian and others. It is understood that the brand-name chocolates they produce are difficult to distinguish from packaging, trademarks to products, so many consumers have been deceived.