It’s perhaps unsurprising to find fake goods on Chinese e-commerce websites, but shoppers were nevertheless astonished to discover that a local court had put a fake Louis Vuitton bag up for sale.

A county-level courthouse in the central province of Henan was selling the imitation bag as part of a judicial auction. A defendant who was unable to pay back her debts had her possessions seized and put up for sale.

The court wasn’t shy about the bag’s authenticity. On Tuesday, it put the auction item up for sale on Taobao, China’s largest e-commerce platform, with the description: “fake LV handbag from Du Xiaoqin’s seized properties.” The listing included two photos showing details on the bag, including the tan shoulder straps and multiple LV logos scattered liberally across the bag’s exterior.

“Shocking! A people’s court is selling fake goods!” a user on microblog platform Weibo wrote, among other surprised comments.

The counterfeit bag, originally priced at 350 yuan ($50), attracted more than 3,000 views in 10 hours. But the listing had been removed by Wednesday.

An employee of the Yiyang County People’s Court surnamed Hu told Sixth Tone that the court had withdrawn the auction item out of caution. “We never auctioned similar items before,” he said.

Courts frequently auction off the possessions of people who are unable to pay back loans or who have been convicted of corruption. Du, the former owner of the bag, was several million yuan in debt, according to court documents.

Lawyer Han Xiao of Beijing-based Kangda Law Firm told Sixth Tone that fake goods should be confiscated by authorities instead of being allowed back onto the market again. “Fake goods should be strictly forbidden to be traded again through judicial auctions,” he said.

In the spring of 2015, a court in eastern China’s Zhejiang province held public auctions of fake paintings and fake works of calligraphy. An expert specialized in identifying authenticity explained at the time that the fake goods also had value because they still held a certain artistic merit.

The bag, though clearly marked fake, was apparently also considered valuable to some online shoppers. Before the listing was taken offline, the price had been bid up to 650 yuan.

Additional reporting by Lin Qiqing.

(Header image: Confiscated fake Louis Vuitton bags are seen at a market in Beijing, March 9, 2006. VCG)