Biz News Flash

Former manager charged over phony goods

By Meng Jing (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-02-10 14:51

The former general manager of Silk Street market in Beijing will be charged by Chaoyang Procuratorate for permitting the sale of counterfeit products and taking bribes.

Wang Zili was alleged to support retailers selling fake products in the market by investing in their business. He was also accused of accepting bribes from some retailers, according to the Beijing News yesterday.

Wang took charge of Silk Street in 2006 and resigned in July 2009. However, in December 2009 Wang was found in Hohhot, Inner Mongolia and was detained by police. He remains in detention today.

Chaoyang court said Wang's case is being investigated by police and has not yet been brought to court.

A former Silk Street vendor named Yang Changjun, who was sentenced to three and a half years in jail by the court on Monday for selling counterfeit bags, claimed Wang used him to sell fake goods.

On Aug 9, 2009, as many as 8,425 counterfeit bags were found in Yang's private storehouse in Silk Street by police. All the products were copies of top designer brands such as Louis Vuitton, Gucci and Chanel.

Yang admitted the charge of selling a large quantity of counterfeit goods, but claimed it was Wang Zili who persuaded him to conduct the business.

Chaoyang court also fined Yang 10,000 yuan and confiscated all the counterfeit bags. Zang Desheng, the judge in the case, revealed that as much as 766,990 yuan was involved in Yang's case.

"I've never seen a fake goods case as large as this one. Usually, we consider 250,000 yuan as a big case," Zang told METRO yesterday.

However, Yang said the sentence was "too much" and planned to lodge an appeal before Thursday, according to his defense lawyer Qu Ziying.

Qu said Yang started selling genuine leather goods in Silk Street in 2004 but consistently lost money.

"Wang offered him money and suggested he buy fake products from Guangdong and resell them in the market. Wang also told Yang they could monopolize the fake goods market in Silk Street since he was the general market at that time," Qu said.

"We expected one year in jail because Wang had not made a lot of money from it and the money involved was not that high. The court evaluated the goods as genuine products, not fakes, which made the amount appear much greater," he added.