The National Police seize 65,000 counterfeit toys in Fuenlabrada

Christmas is coming and counterfeiters know it.

The Spanish toy industry enjoys good health and excellent international positioning, very close to Germany, the main country of the sector.

According to the data of the AEFJ (Spanish Association of Toy Manufacturers), the sector has managed to recover from the crisis, accumulating growth of over 40% over the last decade.

With just under 200 companies located mostly in Levante and Catalonia, this sector generates 30,000 direct and indirect jobs, as well as an annual turnover of around 1,700 million euros.

However, and for obvious reasons, toy sales have a very seasonal nature, concentrating half of its sales at Christmas time.

Counterfeiters are trying to stock up on counterfeit toys to take advantage of this industry sales peak.

The National Police, together with officials of the Tax Agency, seized in October in an industrial building in Fuenlabrada (Madrid) a total of 65,000 counterfeit toys. These lacked the corresponding child safety controls, which poses a great risk to the integrity and health of the minors for whom they were intended.

The items intervened in the Madrid city were prepared to be distributed and marketed throughout the national territory, having a market value that exceeds 372,000 euros.

The investigation began after the Tax Agency officials received international information on the possible importation of counterfeit toys for sale in Spain. The corresponding investigations carried out by the investigators were able to detect a game that came from the United Kingdom and that had 249 packages suspected of containing fakes inside.

Agents of the National Police, in collaboration with officials of the Tax Agency, verified the facts and followed up a delivery of 32 packages that arrived at an industrial estate located in Fuenlabrada, in the Community of Madrid.

The agents searched the industrial warehouse, where they opened the packages and were able to verify that inside were counterfeit toys of well-known trademarks, being prepared for distribution and commercialization throughout Spain.

In addition, different figures of a small size could be found that did not have adequate and required child safety controls, which represents a clear risk to the integrity of the minors to whom the toys were intended.

DATA IN THE EUROPEAN UNION

The Observatory of the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) in one of its sector studies (The economic cost of IPR infringement in games and toys, published in 2015) has already established that counterfeit toys cause some annual losses of 1.4 billion euros in the EU.

The annual losses of the manufacturers of games and toys of the EU amount to 1,400 million euros due to the presence of counterfeit products in the market.

This study revealed that 12.3% of sales of the EU games and toys sector are lost due to fakes.

That loss in sales also entails the loss of 6,150 jobs, since, due to counterfeits, legitimate manufacturers hire fewer workers.

The games and toys manufacturing sector in the EU is mostly made up of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), which employ an average of approximately 10 workers.

The report also reveals that, when the direct and indirect effects of counterfeiting are taken into account in the game and toy manufacturing sector, the amount that the EU public coffers cease to enter amounts to 370 million euros in concept of loss of VAT, income taxes, social security contributions and corporate tax.

In Spain, 16.6% of direct sales in the sector (167 million euros) are lost annually in Spain. It also represents a loss of 13.7% of the total jobs in the sector in the country.