Fraudster caught red-handed; cops recover several fake HP products

New Delhi: Delhi Police on Wednesday said that staff from Jyoti Nagar police station have conducted a raid at a sewage pumping house near Loni Road, New Delhi and recovered a carton full of several counterfeit HP products that included printer toners and cartridges among other things.

They said that as a result of the raid, one accused, identified as Ajay Kumar (22) was caught red-handed with the counterfeit products.

Police had initially filed a case based on a complaint registered by Hewlett Packard (HP) through a person holding powers of attorney in Delhi earlier this year.

Speaking to the Millennium Post, DCP Atul Kumar Thakur (North East District) said that upon cursory checking of the carton in possession of the accused, nine HP cartridges with different versions of HP laser jet toners in them were discovered.

The raid was conducted in the presence of an expert from the company, who checked and confirmed the nature of these products as being counterfeit.

In addition to this, HP has also claimed that a raid was conducted at a computer retail store in the busy business locality of Bhikaji Cama Place where one arrest was made. According to a police seizure report in possession of Millennium Post, this raid was conducted at a basement store in Ansal Chamber-1 where about 25 pieces of different HP counterfeit products were recovered.

However, DCP Thakur said that he cannot disclose any information about this particular raid as investigations in the case are ongoing.

In its complaint, the company alleged that certain retailers in Delhi were selling spurious and counterfeit products such as computer toners and cartridges under the brand name of HP, without the company's consent, thus violating its copyright and intellectual property rights.

The company accused these retailers of using its trademark, trade logo, and artwork to dupe unaware consumers into believing they were purchasing products manufactured by HP. The complaint also said that the alleged fraudsters packaged their counterfeit products in a manner similar to their own packaging, further trying to pass off their products as genuine.

In addition to the raid in Delhi, HP representatives in India also claimed to have conducted raids with assistance from local authorities in Noida, Gurugram and at least five other states across the country.

A case against the accused has been registered under section 63 of the Copyright Act at the Jyoti Nagar police station.