Nigerian Police and state security officers have moved to find and seize counterfeit printing supplies specifically targeted at HP Printers around the country. Authorities, who have found and confiscated about 167,000 fake items since the raids commenced in March 2017, said the raided operations were involved in manufacturing counterfeit print supplies for HP Printers, and providing components illegally bearing the original company’s trademark to other counterfeiting organisations.
The raids were in collaboration with HP’s Anti Counterfeiting and Fraud (ACF) programme, which provided key intelligence and helped with identifying the seized items as counterfeit. Olatunji Itiola, country supplies business manager, Nigeria and Ghana, HP, said that the illicit items seized by officials included ready for sale counterfeit printing cartridges as well as fake components such as security labels and packaging.
According to Itiola, “HP is delighted that this illegal activity has been identified and the defrauding of thousands of innocent Nigerians has been prevented. We are grateful to the Nigerian authorities for their cooperation in this matter. We are proud of the continued success of the anti-counterfeiting and fraud programme, and we would continue to work hard to protect customers from potentially dangerous fake printing products.”
Across Europe, Middle-East and Africa (EMEA), approximately 12 million counterfeits and components have been seized by local authorities. HP says it has conducted over 4,500 audits and inspections (CPPAs and CDIs) of partners’ stocks or suspicious deliveries for customers.
Stakeholders in the industry say the seizure of illicit items is a step right direction as the country needs to rid of fraudulent activities. Speaking on quackery in Nigeria’s Information Technology (IT) industry, Vincent Asor, chairman, Council of Computer Professionals of Nigeria (CPN), told BusinessDay, “The IT industry is not properly regulated and this has created an avenue for quackery in the industry.”
Experts say such illegal imitations can cause a multitude of problems that can cause performance and reliability issues.
