THE SCOOP ON FAKE SNEAKERS

Hi Richard, good to catch up with you again.
Have you been catching any crooks lately?

We're always catching crooks, as you well know. Frighteningly, we probably average about 40 cases a month that we would somehow bring to a close.

We last spoke over a year and a half ago.
Things have obviously changed since then.

There's actually been a huge shift. I recall telling you that the largest component of our work was apparel-based and that there was a smaller number of footwear. I think that has completely flipped now. 90% of every importation I deal with now is footwear. I think that's because, as our enforcement strategies have got more aggressive and fine-tuned, it's now safer to take the risk to manufacture apparel locally rather than try to get it across the border. Whilst that has been happening, the footwear counterfeiting business has become more sophisticated. Their price points have increased. Their websites are improving. Their infrastructure is improving and they're getting a much higher price for their footwear than they were getting a year and a half ago. People are now prepared to invest really large sums of money in footwear from strangers in different countries than was the case a year and a half ago.

I saw in the paper last week that they're training beagles to sniff out counterfeit DVDs a airports. Are there any plans for pooches to sniff out some sneakers?

Well, I heard Taco Bell are training chihuahuas to look for counterfeit tacos as well! The counterfeit sale of DVDs has overtaken drugs as the largest source of income for organised criminals, because you can easily get tens of thousands of dollars worth of illegal imports into one suitcase. Like any commodity that has a constant scent, you could just as easily teach a dog to identify that particular smell as you can do with the scent of an explosive.