Three men have been arrested in the UK for dealing in an estimated $10m-worth of counterfeit Cisco networking products.



Detectives from the Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit (PIPCU) said the arrests meant that a criminal operation suspected of importing, exporting and selling the fakes had effectively been dismantled.



The three men were arrested after 40 shipments of suspected counterfeit Cisco products- believed to have been sent from the suspects business in the UK to the US - were intercepted by US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) between December 2012 and April this year.



The men are accused dealing in the counterfeit networking products through a company website and telesales.



The three suspects' homes and a business address in Bishops Stortford were searched and counterfeit Cisco equipment with an estimated value of more than $1m was seized during the operation.



The trade in counterfeit IT products is estimated to be worth up to $1bn a year, and the criminals operating in the sector have progressively become more sophisticated in the complexity and sophistication of the products they copy.



Cisco has been a victim of multiple counterfeiting incidents in recent years, with a number of high-profile examples in recent years. In 2010 for example the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in the US and other enforcement agencies seized an incredible $143m-worth of fake Cisco hardware over the course of a five-year operation that eventually led to around 30 convictions.



The company is taking increasingly tough measures to safeguard its supply chain, for example by taking action against distributor partners suspected of involvement in counterfeit or grey market sales of its products. In 2013, the company sent letters to hundreds of resellers, integrators and vendors to inform them they were blacklisted and would no longer be sold Cisco goods or services.



Detective Inspector Mick Dodge of PIPCU said, "last week's action saw PIPCU dismantle a criminal gang suspected of cheating the computer industry out of millions of pounds.”



"Cisco products are used by organisations worldwide to underpin their IT infrastructures," he added.



"Businesses need to have confidence in their supply chains and be aware of the risks that counterfeit products can have on their networks; potentially compromising integrity and functionality including significant network outages."