Nigerian authorities seized 167,000 fake HP printing products which included cartridges and fake security labels which were found after raids this week.
Nigeria Today reported that the items which were “branded as HP products” were seized during raids by Nigerian security officers, HP Inc’s Anti-Counterfeiting and Fraud Programme (ACF) supplied key intelligence to authorities and identified the items as fake.
The counterfeits were mostly made up of cartridges and fake security labels and packaging which if sold on the market could cause numerous problems for consumers such as performance and reliability issues the report said and if these items caused damage to printers there could also be issues with warranty’s which may become void.
Olatunji Itiola, Country Supplies Business Manager, Nigeria and Ghana, said: “HP is delighted that this illegal activity has been identified and the defrauding of thousands of innocent customers has been prevented. We are grateful to the Nigerian authorities for their cooperation in this matter. We are proud of the continued successes of the ACF programme, and we will continue to work hard to protect customers from potentially dangerous fake printing products.”
There have been over 12 million counterfeits and components seized throughout the EMEA during the last five 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.