Between October 2019 and March 2020, HP has reportedly seized nearly 200,000 in Kenya, Nigeria and Tanzania.
Tech Trends KE reported that in raids held since October 2019 and March 2020, HP’s Anti-Counterfeiting and Fraud (ACF) Programme has managed to help seize close to 200,000 counterfeit printer cartridges and components in Kenya, Nigeria and Tanzania.
Tech Trends KE said that local authorities managed to disrupt “wholesalers and retailers of fake products through a series of raids carried out in retail outlets, warehouses and manufacturing facilities across the region.”
5,400 counterfeit toner cartridges from twelve retailers have been seized in February 2020 alone. Between October 2019 and March 2020, 185,000 fake items were seized in raids in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and in Nigeria HP seized 7,100 illegal items “in a series of outlet shop raids.”
Tech Trends KE reported that one of the searches in Dar es Salaam “was initiated following a Customer Delivery Inspection (CDI)”, a service that HP offers to its large and medium customers, “whereby if a customer suspects that counterfeit products have been included in a shipment of supplies, HP will check the products on site and act accordingly.”
There have been over 12 million counterfeits and components seized throughout the EMEA during the past years by local authorities backed by HP Inc and the OEM itself has conducted more than 4,500 “audits and inspections of partners stocks or suspicious deliveries”.
HP Inc’s ACF programme is responsible for educating its customers and partners on what to look out for in counterfeit products and works closely with local and worldwide law enforcements to find and destroy illegal operations that produce fake HP Inc printing consumables.
