Sameer Chamadia

Abdul Chamdia

Gujarat

Flipkart

Darshak Parekh

Surat police of Thursday busted an online fake shoes racket where the accused were passing off cheap Chinese duplicates as branded shoes and scamming customers in what primarily appears to be a nationwide operation.Officials at Udhna police station, after being tipped off about illegal business of selling fake shoes by branding them with stickers of popular international footwear companies, raided a warehouse in Udhna, Surat.PSI JB Ahir of Udhna police station led the raid and recovered 4,500 pairs of duplicate shoes. Talking to Mirror, he said: “We have seized 4,500 pairs of shoes branded with logos of multinational footwear companies. Industry experts have valued the fake footwear at an average Rs 5,000 per pair. Hence, our estimate of the haul in the open market comes to about Rs 2.54 crore.”Asked about the modus operandi, Ahir said the accused ordered footwear from Delhi which originated in China. They used to bring them in small parcels and collect them at the godown to ward off suspicion. They also imported cardboard from which they used to make boxes to package the finished goods so that it looked like genuine products, said the PSI. “They used to put the shoes up for sale online at 20%-30% discount and lure gullible customers who thought they were getting a good deal,” Ahir explained.While two workers were arrested from the warehouse, its owneris in custody of another police station on a theft charge and Udhna police will request his remand only after his interrogation in another case is completed.Sameer Chamadia is not involved only in the fake shoes and theft cases. Police informed that he is also wanted in another case of fake shoes business busted in Udhna last year by CID Crime’s Intellectual Property Rights division. His brotheris also a partner-in-crime and was arrested on October 1last year in the same case by CID.There is a possibility of this being a multi-state racket where members of the chain pass off cheap duplicates as branded shoes. Police is still investigating this angle of the crime.Darshak Parekh, who represents several international firms and looks after their copyright problems in, told Mirror, “This is definitely a scam that is running in more than one state.”PSI Ahir said, “We have our eyes on a few more businesses regarding fake shoes business in Surat.”The accused used to sell the shoes at discounted rates online. Police informed that they did so through online shopping platforms like Snapdeal andamong others.Parekh said, “These people register as sellers on online platforms and sell duplicate goods.”It is possible that they used the name Mr Shoes as the accused owns a shop by the same name in Surat. This was also reported by the CID last year.According to, who is an expert in the field of duplicate products, there are three ways to identify fake shoes.1.Material:The material in fake shoes is thinner2.UPC Code: There is a unique code on every pair of branded shoes that tell you where they were manufactured. This is the biggest giveaway as fake ones miss out on it3. Logo: There is a subtle difference in the original and duplicate logos