Cheetham Hill counterfeit traders were caught with £1m worth of fake goods after Louis Vuitton and other top designers employed a private eye to investigate traders.
Plain clothes officers posed as customers to infiltrate four separate shops in the area - which last month was named the counterfeit capital of Britain. One was sold a fake red Mulberry handbag for £18. The genuine bag would cost £795. In a second swoop, an undercover investigator was sold a knock-off Louis Vuitton travel bag for £23. The real bags cost more than £1,000 each.
A raid with police last December at premises on Bury New Road and Harris Street netted enough fake goods and clothing to fill a 40ft-long shipping crate - worth £1m. Four ‘principal’ arrests were made as a result - all men working in shops selling dodgy clothes, jewellery, electrical items and accessories.
All four men pleaded guilty at Manchester magistrates court to charges of selling or possessing counterfeit goods.
Riasat Ali, 42, sold four Louis Vuitton compact mirrors and SuperDry jackets and T-Shirts to a test purchaser for £45 at a store on Great Ducie Street in Cheetham. All were fake and other items were sold in subsequent operations. He was sentenced to eight weeks in prison, suspended for 12 months, with 200 hours of unpaid work.
Muhammad Ali, 38, was caught at a store on Great Ducie Street selling a fake Louis Vuitton bag for £15 - they retail for £685. He was sentenced to a 12-month community order with 150 hours of unpaid work.
Mohammadawa Nazari, 40 sold fake Louis Vuitton handbags and earrings, Chanel earrings, a Mulberry clutch and a Jimmy Choo handbag from a store on Harris Street.
Eraj Nezamuddin, 28, was caught selling fake Mulberry and Louis Vuitton bags. Both Nezamuddin and Nazari will be sentenced next month.
Prosector Sarah Wood said the men were ‘effectively acting as wholesalers’ but told the court they were employed to work by others.
Four more suspected sellers have now been issued with court summonses and investigations continue.
