Pretoria \u2013 The South African Police Service (SAPS) has seized counterfeit and illicit goods worth more than R156 million during a major nationwide crackdown in recent weeks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The large-scale operations were led by the National Counterfeit and Illicit Goods Unit, supported by Public Order Policing (POP), the South African Revenue Service (SARS) Customs and Enforcement team, brand protectors, counterfeit depot officials, and private security.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to SAPS, the integrated team executed search-and-seizure warrants under the Counterfeit Goods Act 37 of 1997 and the Customs and Excise Act at targeted outlets in Marabastad, Mokopane, Mbombela, Bela Bela, Mookgophong, and Modimolle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Authorities confiscated more than 23,000 counterfeit items, including clothing, shoes, handbags, watches, perfumes, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, and jewelry imitating well-known designer brands. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Fake sports apparel bearing the Springboks trademark was also seized outside Mbombela Stadium and Loftus Versfeld Stadium during recent rugby matches.The team further impounded illicit cigarettes valued at over R50,000.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The SAPS said these efforts form part of its commitment to protect consumers, support legitimate businesses, and safeguard the economy from the impact of counterfeit goods.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe illegal trade in counterfeit goods undermines our economy and poses a risk to consumers. We will continue to intensify operations across the country,\u201d SAPS stated.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Pretoria \u2013 The South African Police Service (SAPS) has seized counterfeit and illicit goods worth more than R156 million during a major nationwide crackdown in recent weeks. The large-scale operations… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1757,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1756","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-community-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/diepslootnews.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1756","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/diepslootnews.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/diepslootnews.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diepslootnews.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diepslootnews.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1756"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/diepslootnews.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1756\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1758,"href":"https:\/\/diepslootnews.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1756\/revisions\/1758"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diepslootnews.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1757"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/diepslootnews.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1756"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diepslootnews.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1756"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diepslootnews.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1756"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}