MUMBAI: The Mumbai Police swooped on a factory manufacturing fake products of globally recognised American brand Levi's - of Levi Strauss & Co, California, an official said here on Wednesday.
Following a tip-off received on the scam by the Crime Branch Unit 12 in Dahisar, a team of sleuths maintained a week-long surveillance on the garment factory, Smita Enterprises, Dalvi Compound, at Film City Road in Goregaon East, allegedly indulging in the fraud.
After verification, the police raided the warehouse of Smita Enterprises on Monday and seized around 300 t-shirts, brand labels, other materials, fusing and printing machinery, totally worth over Rs 16 lakh.
The owner of the complainant company, Netrika Enterprises, who was present during the operation, checked and confirmed that the seized goods were all "fake products" intended to cheat gullible customers in the market.
The Dindoshi police station has detained the prime accused - owner of Smita Enterprises, who has confessed to the crime - and booked him under various sections of the Indian Penal Code and the Copyright Act, as further investigations are underway.
An official in the probe said that the fraudulent cheap products, passed off with the labels of the prestigious American brand, were being sold out in the open markets, in shops, malls and other outlets to dupe unsuspecting customers vying for such big labels.
Suspecting it to be the tip of a possibly bigger scam, the sleuths are trying to find out the other associates of the accused, the retail outlets from where they were being sold and the probable fake use of other known international brand names in the entire racket.