Agency, Firms Aim To Halt Fake Gear -- WSJ
06 Maggio 2020 - 09:02AM
Dow Jones News
By Austen Hufford
This article is being republished as part of our daily
reproduction of WSJ.com articles that also appeared in the U.S.
print edition of The Wall Street Journal (May 6, 2020).
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and companies including
3M Co., Amazon.com Inc. and Pfizer Inc. said they are working
together to curtail the flood of counterfeit masks, coronavirus
tests and other equipment entering the country.
The agency's center for intellectual-property protection said
Tuesday that it was working with companies to identify suspicious
shipments and take down suspect online listings for masks and other
gear. The intellectual-property unit said the companies have agreed
to share information and best practices with it to combat such
trade.
"This information-sharing effort allows the government to then
make more informed decisions about targeting suspicious
international shipments," said Lev Kubiak, chief security officer
for Pfizer, which is working on an experimental coronavirus
vaccine.
As the new coronavirus has spread across the U.S., government
officials, health-care executives and private citizens have
increased purchases of masks and other medical gear. The demand far
outstrips domestic capacity to make many of those goods, even as 3M
and other companies have ramped up production.
That has led to a surge in imports of goods including masks and
protective gear -- some counterfeit or subpar -- from unproven
vendors. U.S. regulators and state officials have found a
significant number of imported masks are falling short of
certification standards.
"It poses a serious health concern to the American public when
they are wearing face masks that they think have the protection of
N95 masks but are really substandard," Steve Francis, director of
ICE's National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center,
said in an interview. ICE is a division of the Department of
Homeland Security. N95 masks are named for the 95% of very small
particles they are certified to block, including droplets
containing the virus.
The agency said it had identified more than 19,000 suspect
Covid-19-related domain names with the help of the companies in the
partnership and is working to take many of them down. U.S. Customs
and Border Protection has seized nearly 500 shipments of
unauthorized products, including protective equipment and products
that purport to test for or treat the disease, ICE said. And agents
from Homeland Security Investigations, an arm of ICE, have opened
315 investigations and made 11 arrests of people allegedly selling
or shipping improper goods.
Mr. Francis said companies from different sectors and parts of
the supply chain are lending their expertise to the effort. They
include Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., Citigroup Inc. and Merck &
Co., in addition to 3M, Amazon and Pfizer.
Some companies are also taking separate action against
counterfeit protective gear. 3M, a major supplier of N95 masks, has
filed around 10 federal lawsuits in recent weeks against entities
the company says are price gouging or selling fake products.
"We are going to see a flood of counterfeits hitting the U.S.
marketplace," Mr. Francis said.
Write to Austen Hufford at austen.hufford@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
May 06, 2020 02:47 ET (06:47 GMT)
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