Police and customs officers conducted a raid on two watch shops on Broadway, confiscating approximately 600 counterfeit designer watches. In addition to the watches, they also recovered imitation sunglasses from a popular brand.
The raid was initiated after officials from a company holding the patent and trademark rights for Casio, Rado, and Tissot in India approached the Ernakulam Central police regarding the sale of counterfeits at various shops on Broadway. Acting on this information, the police searched two shops – Sree Vishnu Watch and Time Fancy – at Mather Bazar on Wednesday evening.
At Sree Vishnu Watch, officers found over 510 fake Casio and Tissot products. Time Fancy had around 80 counterfeit Casio, Rado, Tissot, and Longines watches, along with 30 fake Ray-Ban sunglasses. The shop owners have been charged with violating the Copyrights Act.
“Customers were aware that these watches were replicas. Given the allure of luxury watches and their promotion on social media, fake watches are popular among youngsters. Imitations of luxury watches, which originally cost over ₹1 lakh, were being sold for between ₹5,000 and ₹10,000,” an officer explained.
On Thursday, police and customs officers conducted additional searches at other watch shops on Broadway.
Authorities are now investigating the source of the counterfeit watches.
“The shop owners claimed they procured the watches from cities like Bengaluru and New Delhi, buying in bulk from suppliers in other states. We need to uncover the manufacturing locations of these products,” the officer stated.
Last year, a similar operation took place following a complaint from a Mumbai-based firm representing Apple Inc. Officers searched various mobile phone outlets in Kochi and seized counterfeit items, including Apple-branded phone covers, earbuds, USB cables, and adapters.
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