Bogus Bearings Seized, Cunning Counterfeiters Thwarted

In a press release posted on its website, Swedish bearing maker SKF Group reports that over 30 tons of bogus bearings carrying the SKF name were confiscated from a non-authorized dealer in the Czech Republic.  The company points out that the manufacture and trade of counterfeit products is a growing global problem.

In a blog post for Electronics Weekly after a trip to China to research the issue of pirated products, I posted images of a real SKF bearing and a fake SKF bearing — noting that the fake one looked  more real than the real one.

My article discussed how the tactics of counterfeiters are getting ever more cunning and sophisticated:

“They often exploit real or realistic-looking packaging to pass a fake off as real. One clever trick is to take the original bearings out of their boxes and replace them with counterfeits. The original bearings are then placed in plastic bags and sold as is. The end result is that the fake is perceived as the real thing and the real thing is perceived as the fake.”

View the bearing images and read about my experiences buying bearings from a street vendor in China.