The Chinese take couterfeiting to a new level...



Electronics market in Shenzhen

 Counterfeit products are everywhere in China.  Last year several bogus "Apple Stores" were discovered.  I wrote a few weeks ago about counterfeit taxis.  The list of fake products you can buy for a substantial discount seems endless, and occasionally the Chinese government makes an attempt to do something about this.  Here is my favorite news story from my most recent visit to Shenzhen:

It seems that bogus Apple products, iPads, iPhones and the like have been making their way from mainland China to Hong Kong, and catching shipments of these products at the border has become a priority for governments on both sides.  Recently, one such shipment was discovered near a border crossing between Shenzhen and Hong Kong, the goods seized and arrests made...but this did not go down the way you might think.   As it turns out, the smugglers, who were in reality undercover police arrested the police, who were not policemen at all but theives disguised as cops trying to steal the counterfeit merchandise to sell for themselves.  Fake smugglers of fake goods arresting fake cops!  You gotta love this place...