Counterfeit goods worth more than €17 million have been seized during Joint Action Day (JAD) Pirates 4.

The international operation was led by the European Border and Coast Guard Agency (Frontex) in cooperation with EUIPO, Europol, EU Member States and non-EU countries.

It targeted criminal networks involved in the trade of counterfeit goods with coordinated checks at border crossings, ports, airports and logistics hubs across the EU, Serbia, Ukraine and the UK.

More than 1.7 million counterfeit and undeclared items were seized, including counterfeit toys, clothing, perfumes, jewellery, watches, mobile phones, pharmaceuticals, detergents, e-cigarettes, tobacco products, electronics and vehicle parts.

Fake clothing products accounted for over 0.5 million items seized, worth over €9 million in total. At Kapitan Andreevo in Bulgaria, 41,280 counterfeit Nike-branded textile garments were seized in an HGV coming from Türkiye. They included fake Croatian football team shirts.

Over 100,000 counterfeit cosmetics and perfume items were seized, with an estimated value of more than €1 million. €34,700 worth of fake perfumes were seized at the Polish-Ukrainian border in Smilnytsia, Ukraine

A sea container containing 83,738 counterfeit perfumes and cosmetics was discovered at the port of Naples. Counterfeit cosmetic products, including 2,880 Burberry lipsticks and 1,440 Christian Dior lipstick sets, with an estimated market value of €374,400, were found in a random inspection of a sea container at the port of Hamburg Customs office.

Almost 1000,000 toys were seized, with a value of more than €600,000. In Spain, almost 2,000 items were seized in Leganés (Madrid) from China, while Portugal intercepted more than 28,000 fake Monopoly board games in a sea container from China at the Port of Sines.

243,860 cans of fake energy drinks were seized. Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, and the UK reported seizures of fake non-alcoholic beverages (Red Bull) with identical packaging. One container was detected and seized at the port of Burgas, a second was detected near London, and the third place of detection was a shop in the Czech city of Brno.

Read more about the JAD Pirates 4 on the EUIPO website here. Photos by Frontex/EUIPO