City To Tell the Real Story Of Counterfeiting's Costs

The city is poised to unveil a campaign to educate tourists and locals alike about the harsh realities of supporting the counterfeit goods industry, which officials say costs the city more than $1 billion in lost sales taxes each year.

Beginning Monday, posters adorned with messages that relay the lesser-known perils of counterfeiting will be plastered on phone booth kiosks in areas of the city infamous for harboring peddlers of fake name-brand goods, such as Chinatown and Times Square, officials announced yesterday.

Unveiled at the Harper's Bazaar Anticounterfeiting Summit, the posters warn shoppers about the harmful consequences of counterfeiting with messages such as "when you buy counterfeit goods, you support child labor."

Deputy Mayor Edward Skyler announced the two-month campaign in front of a room of executives from businesses wounded by counterfeiting, an industry experts say generates upward of $650 billion a year. He said the sales tax lost to counterfeit goods would provide the city with funds to hire 10,000 new police officers, firefighters, or teachers.

"This is a problem that is a little like weeds, we need to keep pulling them out," he said.

The keynote speaker at the summit, Moisés Naím, who recently wrote a book about the global counterfeit industry, said the city's campaign is a step in the right direction. He warned, however, that significantly more needs to be done to deal with the counterfeit trade, an industry that funds terrorism and perpetuates various other crimes across the globe.

"No government can tackle this alone," he said.

The summit commenced with a panel discussion led by anti-counterfeit experts from the private and public sector. One of the panelists, Patrick Ford, the senior director of global security in the Americas for Pfizer Inc., cautioned of the health dangers involved with the growing counterfeit pharmaceuticals industry.

He said counterfeit pharmaceuticals, which have invaded legitimate markets in America, are sometimes made with ingredients such as boric acid and floor polish.

The anticounterfeiting summit was the fourth annual event organized by Harper's Bazaar and the magazine's publisher, Valerie Salembier, who is widely credited as an instrumental and pioneering voice in the battle against counterfeiting.