Seoul City announced on March 30 that four Korean traders who were selling fake brand products exclusively to Japanese tourists were caught under suspicion of violating the trademark law. The selling price of 640 confiscated fake brand products is said to be 1.5 billion won (about 150 million yen) if converted to genuine.
According to the Seoul Metropolitan Government Judicial Police Corps, the dealer opens a shop dealing with counterfeit goods such as famous brand watches, handbags, wallets, etc. in the commercial building of downtown · Myeong-dong where there are many Japanese tourists. It was said that it sold it to Japanese tourists who took a guest on the street or brought in through the introducer.
An investigator in the city who is fluent in Japanese confirmed the store pretending as a Japanese customer and forced investigation. If you distribute or sell fake brand products in Korea, you will be imprisoned for not more than 7 years or a fine of 100 million won (about 10 million yen) or less.
According to the Korea Tourism Organization, those who visited Korea from Japan in January to June this year increased by 18% to 1.31 million people. It seems that the improvement of inter-Korean relationship and the influence of K-POP boom, Seoul city is putting efforts to seize crime aimed at Japanese tourists. (Seoul = Hajime Takeda)