In September 2010, responding to reports by companies Harman, Sennheiser, Shure and Audio-Technica, Guangdong Public Security Department supervised a criminal investigation by Jiangmen City Police into Enping City Meipai Electronic Audio Factory, which was suspected of selling fake audio equipment under famous brand names.

Additional Resources
• Read more industry trade news from HomeTheaterReview.com.
• See more information on thieves of a different nature.

On October 28, after meticulous investigation, Jiangmen City Police launched a crackdown operation, raiding the fake goods lair and three other storage dens in one fell swoop. They seized over 1200 items of audio equipment, including microphones, loudspeakers, power amplifiers, and mixers, all marked falsely with famous brand names. It has been established that the gang, operating under the name "New Dynamics Audio Equipment Factory", used the internet as a platform to sell huge quantities of fake audio equipment. On December 5 2010, after authorization by Enping City People's Procuratorate, Enping City Public Security Bureau arrested four of the suspects.

This operation effectively curbed market circulation of fake low quality goods, retrieved huge economic losses, and successfully upheld the legal rights of the brand names involved.

"The active fight against brand and product piracy is extremely important to us in order to enable us to protect the brand and our customers and avoid the sale/purchase of counterfeit equipment. The purchase of counterfeits can be avoided by buying through our network of authorised Sennheiser retailers. This means we can ensure that our customers purchase genuine Sennheiser products and that the quality of the product is guaranteed. With this intensive crackdown in Enping, we have succeeded in a very important mission designed to protect our intellectual property and consequently, the company too," said Volker Bartels, Sennheiser's President of Corporate Services, spokesperson of the Executive Management Board.

"Counterfeit products damage our entire industry," said Al Hershner, Vice President of Shure's US and Asia Business Units.

"We are pleased at Audio-Technica of our collaboration with other major brands the action against counterfeits manufacturers and traders. This collaboration aims to safeguard the public buying genuine products. Our brand image and our successes are due to quality product and warranty services from our organization, action against product piracy is essential in order to protect the customer experience who believe very often that he is using genuine product. Visual appearance of the counterfeit products does not guarantee neither the audio quality nor the long term use; when one day the customer will realize that he/she does not have an original product, his/her disappointment will be somehow associated to our brand ; this is not acceptable for Audio-Technica." Commented by Ryuji Haraguchi, Director of Audio-Technica Corporation, Japan/General Manager International Department.