Biggest storage of fake top brand bags busted in northern Vietnam

By Dat Nguyen March 18, 2021 | 01:00 am PT

Counterfeit handbags seen at a warehouse in Vu Ban District, northern Nam Dinh Province on March 17, 2021. Photo courtesy of the Vietnam Directorate of Market Surveillance.

A warehouse of fake Hermès, Louis Vuitton and Chanel products has been busted in northern Vietnam and 20,000-30,000 products confiscated.

The value of the products, found in Nam Dinh Province’s Vu Ban District Wednesday, has been estimated at around VND6 billion ($262,000) by Nam Dinh authorities.

Police and other functional forces had to use 10 3.5-ton trucks to transport the seized goods, consisting mostly of handbags. They said this was the biggest storage of such goods found in northern Vietnam after a six-month investigation.

The sellers, unable to prove the origins of these products, mostly distributed the goods via social media, using dozens of Facebook accounts to evade authorities.

They listed an address in Hanoi’s Bac Tu Liem District as the official store, but authorities found nothing there.

A spokesperson of French luxury clothing and accessories brand Hermès said that it conducts no sales on social media or e-commerce websites in Vietnam.

It only has two official stores for handbags in the country, one in Hanoi's Hoan Kiem District and the other in Ho Chi Minh City's District 1.