Belgium blocks 411 websites selling counterfeit goods

Belgium's Federal Public Service (FPS) Economy and customs have blocked access to 411 sites offering counterfeit goods. The move was part of a large-scale international operation, which saw a total of 999 domain names blocked worldwide, writes Het Laatste Nieuws.

For the international operation In Our Sites VI, an initiative of the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol), the FPS Economy and customs in Belgium ran a search for websites that sell counterfeit products. The sites were made inaccessible, and visitors to the pages were instead met with an information page explaining the action and the fight against counterfeit products.

With the operation, Belgium shut down a total of 411 websites for selling counterfeit merchandise to consumers online, compared to 155 last year. Belgium blocked websites with domain names ending in .be or .eu, even though these domain names do not necessarily mean the sites are operated from within Belgium.

The blocked websites were offering “counterfeit luxury products, like clothing and shoes, purportedly made by well-known brands to lure visitors to their websites,” says Chantal De Pauw, spokeswoman for the FPS Economy. “Some of the websites were almost exact copies of the original ones, making it hard to distinguish which ones were real."

The FPS Economy provides the following tips to recognise websites selling counterfeit goods:
Very low prices for well-known brands
Websites that appear less professional than one would expect from a well-known brand
Websites with no information about the company