On Oct 10, 2016 there were news from 10 medias about the raids and investigation by BPS and Jung-gu office as below.

A distributor who have been supplying a lot of ‘counterfeit items’ to street vendors in Dongdaemun has been caught.

On 10th they announced that Jung-gu office (Mr. Choi, Chang-sik, head of office) launched an unexpected raid to a warehouse located in Twaegye-ro 63, Jung-gu and arrested a distributor and seized the items.

Seized counterfeit items were 6 popular brands including Balmain, Moncler and Yves Saint Laurent. Total seized items were 2,017 which is equivalent to 1.5 billion Won.

The arrested distributor was alleged to operate the warehouse for last two years and supply about 4,000 counterfeit clothing to the street vendors in Dongdaemun.

He has been doing business with the street vendors in Dongdaemun.

The warehouse was located in the basement of the house at the corner of the alley where it can’t be seen and was making 8 million won per month by selling them.

Anti-counterfeit team in Jung-gu Office received information about the illegal trade and after 20 days of trace, they managed to find the infringer.

Including this case, Jung-gu Office have found 426 cases and seized 45,279 items worth of 38.1 billion Won from January to end of September in Myeong-dong, Namdaemun market and Dongdaemun.

Compared to the last year, the cases increased from 338 to 426 by 26% and seized items increased from 25,650 to 45,279 by 76.5%.

Jung-gu was notorious for counterfeit items and in order to get rid of that reputation, from 2012 it was the first local government that gained the judicial police power to launch raids in Myeong-dong, Namdaemun, Dongdaemun market where many foreigners visit frequently.

Choi, Chang-sik (head of Jung-gu Office) said “thanks to the intensive raids by our staff, now the counterfeit sales dropped significantly and now we removed the stigma of “heaven of counterfeits. Establishing the healthy and fair market is our priority. We will do our best to make it clean so tourists can enjoy their shopping.”