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San Francisco, July 16 (IANS) More than 350,000 fake wireless headphones, including AirPods Pro have been seized by US officials since October 2020, the media reported.
The recent seizure of fake AirPods in Cincinnati has proven to be only one of very many examples of counterfeits being intercepted, reports AppleInsider.
New figures from the US Customs and Border Protection said that around 360,000 fake wireless headphones worth $62.2 million have been seized in the past nine months.
According to The Information, the figures are not broken down to reveal how many are specifically Apple products. However, it claims that the AirPods Pro are generally popular with counterfeiters because of their higher price than regular AirPods.
"Counterfeit products deliver an inferior experience, and they can often be dangerous," an Apple spokesperson was quoted as saying by The Information.
"Apple has teams around the world working with law enforcement, customs, merchants, social media companies and e-commerce sites to remove counterfeits," the spokesperson added.
The figure of 360,000 counterfeits comes from the US Custom's fiscal year to date, which began in October 2020. For the whole of 2020, the agency seized 295,000 fakes, worth $61.7 million.
In comparison, for the whole of 2019, US Customs seized wireless headphones valuing up to $3.3 million.
Previously, the US Chamber of Commerce estimated in 2016 that the value of seized counterfeit goods represented only 2.5 per cent of all those in existence. Apple maintains a dedicated anti-counterfeit team of its own.
--IANS
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