Diesel clothing trumpets 2019 clampdown on fakes

Italian clothing company Diesel says it seized tens of thousands of pairs of counterfeit jeans and other items like sunglasses last year, and filed more than 2,800 copyright and trademark infringement proceedings.

All told, the crackdown disrupted 1,244 websites – either taken down entirely or with content removed – with most of the actions directed at e-commerce sites like eBay, Alibaba and Mercado Libre, a Brazilian platform.

It also targeted 2,351 social media URLs selling Diesel fakes, with the majority of those Instagram postings, and secured the takedown of 4,900 fake advertisements on search engines like Google and Bing.

The main sources of counterfeits were Brazil, China, Egypt, Morocco, Portugal, Turkey, United Arab Emirates and the UK.

Raids in China yielded more than 4,000 pairs of jeans, 3,0000 T-shirts and sweatshirts, 5,000 belts and 4,500 labels bearing Diesel’s trademarked logo, ready to be attached to items. Meanwhile, in Turkey – another hot spot for apparel counterfeiting – 23,704 counterfeit items were discovered.

“The actions confirm our will and the offensive undertaken to safeguard the brand and its values of innovation and creativity,” said Diesel in a statement.

The company adds that the measures have led to a “substantial decrease” in the number of counterfeit Diesel products on the market.”

Counterfeiting has long been an issue for Diesel, and in 2018 the company took the unusual step of setting up its own pop-up store on New York’s Canal Street – notorious for fake goods – to sell ‘authentic’ knock-offs under a trademarked DEISEL copycat brand.

At the time, it said more than a million counterfeit Diesel products are believed to be sold globally each year, and the store, along with an awareness-raising initiative using the hashtag #GoWithTheFlaw – was designed to draw attention to the problem.