Overview

Counterfeiting tops the list of organized crimes committed worldwide, raking in nearly half a trillion dollars in 2019. The impact of this illicit business is felt by consumers, brand owners, state authorities, and workers, and it impacts the economy. Moreover, its proliferation has fueled the advancement of organized crime groups. In his illuminating study, Counterfeited in China, Ko-lin Chin investigates this lucrative industry and its emergence in China. His face-to-face interviews with counterfeiters - business owners, workers, facilitators, and key informants - in the hub of Guangzhou, China reveal how businesses that design, produce, and distribute fake and unauthorized luxury goods manage the risks inherent in their business. Counterfeited in China examines the individual and group characteristics of counterfeiters and their relationships with organized crime; analyzes the economic aspects of counterfeiting; assesses the relationships among counterfeiting, violence, and corruption; and seeks to understand the demand for counterfeit goods. Chin also discusses the role of Chinese authorities and other parties in the war against counterfeiting.   Assessing the state of the industry and its future, Chin provides fascinating new insights into the modus operandi of counterfeiters.

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9781439926987

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Reviews

""Counterfeiting is a vast, multibillion-dollar industry, with most production concentrated in China. While general estimates of profits and turnover exist, very little is known about the people involved. Enter Ko-lin Chin, a master ethnographer with several groundbreaking books to his credit. In Counterfeited in China, he meets the workers and offers a comprehensive portrait of this booming industry. Among Chin's many fascinating insights is his conclusion that producers largely operate independently of organized crime groups. This study is another outstanding contribution by Chin to the ethnography of criminal markets and essential reading for scholars and policymakers alike.""--Federico Varese, Professor of Sociology at Sciences Po, Paris; Senior Research Fellow at Nuffield College, Oxford University; and author of Mafia Life: Love, Death and Money at the Heart of Organised Crime ""With this book, Ko-lin Chin delivers another trailblazing examination of a major illicit trade in Asia. Counterfeited in China draws on seventy interviews with counterfeiters and insiders, illuminating a major dark side of the global manufacturing powerhouse. Chin distinguishes between different forms of counterfeiting, highlighting their varying degrees of illegality, and shows how their growth has been promoted by China's economic transformation and, more recently, by the rise of e-commerce. Most strikingly, he reveals that the individuals behind these enterprises are not hardened criminals but ordinary men and women--many from rural backgrounds--striving to get by, who hardly have any connection to organized crime syndicates. A must-read for scholars of illegal markets and organized crime.""--Letizia Paoli, Professor of Criminology at the KU Leuven Faculty of Law and Criminology, Belgium, and author of Mafia Brotherhoods: Organized Crime, Italian Style

Author Information

Ko-lin Chin is Distinguished Professor in the School of Criminal Justice at Rutgers University-Newark. He is the coauthor of The Chinese Heroin Trade: Cross-border Drug Trafficking in Southeast Asiaand Beyond, and Selling Sex Overseas: Chinese Women and the Realities of Prostitution and Global Sex Trafficking, and the author of The Golden Triangle: Inside Southeast Asia’s Drug Trade, and Smuggled Chinese: Clandestine Immigration to the United States (Temple).

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