Two years ago, I set off from central London on the Tube and ended up somewhere in the east of the city walking into a self-storage unit to meet a guy that had 2,000 luxury polo shirts for sale. And as I made my way down the corridor, a broken, blinking light made it just like the cliche scene from a gangster movie. Our man was early, and he was waiting for me in front of a unit secured with four padlocks down the side. On our opening exchange, it was like a verbal sparring match where he threw the first punches. Who was I? Did I have a business card? And where was I going to sell? And then, he just started opening up, and it was my turn. Where were the polo shirts coming from? What paperwork did he have? And when was his next shipment going to arrive? I was treading the fine line between asking enough questions to get what I needed and not enough for him to become suspicious, because what he didn't know is that I'm a counterfeit investigator,
兩年前,我乘坐地鐵 從倫敦市中心出發, 最後到了市東的某處, 走進一個迷你的自存倉庫, 與一個有兩千件 高檔休閒衫要賣的人會面。 當我沿著走廊走下去時, 一盞壞掉閃個不停的燈 讓這景象看來很像老套的黑幫電影。 這個人早到了,他已經在等我, 他背後的倉庫側邊用四個掛鎖鎖上。 我們一開始交易的狀況, 就像是口頭的練習賽, 他先出拳。 我是誰?有名片嗎? 我打算去哪裡賣? 接著,他開始講他自己, 就輪到我了。 休閒衫從哪裡來的? 他有什麼相關文件? 他的下一批貨何時會到? 我拿捏得很精準, 問夠問題以得到我需要的資訊, 同時又不能問太多以免他起疑, 因為他不知道,我是仿冒品調查員,
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
and after 20 minutes or so of checking over the product for the telltale signs of counterfeit production -- say, badly stitched labels or how the packaging had a huge brand logo stamped all over the front of it -- I was finally on my way out, but not before he insisted on walking down to the street with me and back to the station.
檢查產品大約二十分鐘後, 看能不能抓到仿冒品的小辮子── 比如縫得很差的標籤, 或是包裝的正面 滿滿是大型品牌商標── 終於,我要離開了, 但他先堅持要 陪我走到車站的那段路。
And the feeling after these meetings is always the same: my heart is beating like a drum, because you never know if they've actually bought your story, or they're going to start following you to see who you really are. Relief only comes when you turn the first corner and glance behind, and they're not standing there. But what our counterfeit polo shirt seller certainly didn't realize is that everything I'd seen and heard would result in a dawn raid on his house, him being woken out of bed by eight men on his doorstep and all his product seized. But this would reveal that he was just a pawn at the end of a counterfeiting network spanning three continents, and he was just the first loose thread that I'd started to pull on in the hope that it would all unravel.
這類會面之後的感覺,總是相同的: 我的心跳像打鼓一樣快, 因為你永遠不會知道 他們是否真的相信你的說法, 或是他們會開始跟蹤你, 看看你到底是誰。 要等你轉過第一個轉角, 向後瞄一眼, 沒看到他們,才會鬆一口氣。 但這位仿冒休閒衫的賣家肯定不知道 我剛剛看見、聽到的一切, 最後導致他的房子在凌晨被突襲, 被站在他家門階上的八個人驚醒, 他所有的產品都被扣押。 但會發現,他只是個小爪牙, 橫跨三個大陸的仿冒網路 最末端的小爪牙, 他只是我開始拉的第一個鬆脫線頭, 希望一拉能破壞整個網路。
Why go through all that trouble? Well, maybe counterfeiting is a victimless crime? These big companies, they make enough money, so if anything, counterfeiting is just a free form of advertising, right? And consumers believe just that -- that the buying and selling of fakes is not that big a deal. But I'm here to tell you that that is just not true. What the tourist on holiday doesn't see about those fake handbags is they may well have been stitched together by a child who was trafficked away from her family, and what the car repair shop owner doesn't realize about those fake brake pads is they may well be lining the pockets of an organized crime gang involved in drugs and prostitution. And while those two things are horrible to think about, it gets much worse, because counterfeiting is even funding terrorism. Let that sink in for a moment.
為什麼要這麼麻煩? 也許仿冒是一種沒有受害者的犯罪? 這些大公司, 它們賺夠錢了, 如果有差的話, 仿冒只是一種 自由形式的廣告,對吧? 消費者相信 購買和販售假貨沒什麼大不了的。 但我來這裡要告訴各位, 實情並非如此。 渡假觀光客不知道背後那些 負責縫製仿冒手提包的人, 可能是被家庭非法賣掉的童工, 而修車店老闆不知道, 那些仿冒剎車片的背後, 是在幫有組織的犯罪集團斂財, 這集團可能會涉及毒品和賣淫。 雖然這兩件事想起來是蠻可怕的, 還有更糟糕的, 因為賣仿冒品甚至會支助恐怖主義。 稍微沉思一下這點。
Terrorists are selling fakes to fund attacks, attacks in our cities that try to make victims of all of us. You wouldn't buy a live scorpion, because there's a chance that it would sting you on the way home, but would you still buy a fake handbag if you knew the profits would enable someone to buy bullets that would kill you and other innocent people six months later? Maybe not.
恐怖份子販售仿冒品 來為攻擊提供資金, 攻擊我們的城市, 讓我們所有人都變成受害者。 你不會去買一隻活的蠍子, 因為有可能在回家路上你會被牠螫, 但你仍然會買仿冒手提包嗎? 如果你知道從中獲益的人會去買子彈 在六個月後殺害你和其他無辜的人? 也許不會買了。
OK, time to come clean. In my youth -- yeah, I might look like I'm still clinging on to it a bit -- I bought fake watches while on holiday in the Canary Islands. But why do I tell you this? Well, we've all done it, or we know someone that's done it. And until this very moment, maybe you didn't think twice about it, and nor did I, until I answered a 20-word cryptic advert to become an intellectual property investigator. It said "Full training given and some international travel." Within a week, I was creating my first of many aliases, and in the 10 years since, I've investigated fake car parts, alloy wheels, fake pet grooming tools, fake bicycle parts, and, of course, the counterfeiter's favorite, fake luxury leather goods, clothing and shoes.
好,是招供的時候了。 在我年輕時── 是的,我可能現在 看起來都還算年輕── 我在加那利群島渡假時買過假錶。 但我為何要告訴你們? 我們都做過這種事, 或我們認識做過這種事的人。 也許在這一刻之前, 你們買仿冒品都不會遲疑, 我以前也不會遲疑, 直到我回應了一則二十個字的廣告, 變成了智慧財產調查員。 廣告寫著「提供完整的訓練 及一些國際旅程。」 不到一週,我就在創造 我許多化名中的第一個了, 之後十年,我調查過仿冒汽車零件、 鋁合金輪圈、仿冒清潔工具、 仿冒自行車零件、 當然,還有仿冒商的最愛, 仿冒的皮件奢侈品、衣服和鞋子。
And what I've learned in the 10 years of investigating fakes is that once you start to scratch the surface, you find that they are rotten to the core, as are the people and organizations that are making money from them, because they are profiting on a massive, massive scale. You can only make around a hundred to 200 percent selling drugs on the street. You can make 2,000 percent selling fakes online with little of the same risks or penalties. And this quick, easy money then goes on to fund the more serious types of crime, and it pays the way to making these organizations, these criminal organizations, look more legitimate.
在調查仿冒品的十年間, 我學到一旦你開始抓破表面, 你就會發現裡面有爛掉的核心, 也就是從中得利的人和組織, 因為他們非常大規模的獲益。 你大概只能賺一或兩倍, 如果是在街頭販毒; 但在網路上賣仿冒品可以賺到二十倍, 風險或罰金卻少很多。 這快速又好賺的錢, 接著會被用來資助更嚴重的犯罪, 用這些錢能讓這些組織, 這些犯罪組織,看起來像合法的。
So let me bring you in on a live case. Earlier this year, a series of raids took place in one of my longest-running investigations. Five warehouses were raided in Turkey, and over two million finished counterfeit clothing products were seized, and it took 16 trucks to take that all away. But this gang had been clever. They had gone to the lengths of creating their own fashion brands, complete with registered trademarks, and even having photo shoots on yachts in Italy. And they would use these completely unheard-of and unsuspicious brand names as a way of shipping container loads of fakes to shell companies that they'd set up across Europe. And documents found during those raids found that they'd been falsifying shipping documents so the customs officials would literally have no idea who had sent the products in the first place. When police got access to just one bank account, they found nearly three million euros had been laundered out of Spain in less than two years, and just two days after those raids, that gang were trying to bribe a law firm to get their stock back. Even now, we have no idea where all that money went, to who it went to, but you can bet it's never going to benefit the likes of you or me.
讓我舉一個活生生的例子。 今年稍早,發生了一系列的突襲, 這是我最漫長的調查之一。 土耳其有五間倉庫被突襲, 扣押了超過兩百萬件仿冒服裝成品, 用了十六台卡車才把它們全部運走。 但這群歹徒很聰明。 他們居然創造了自己的時尚品牌, 有完整的註冊商標, 甚至還在義大利遊艇上拍攝照片。 他們會用這些完全沒聽過、 不可疑的品牌名稱, 來當作運送大量仿冒品的方式, 來掩護他們設在全歐洲的空殼公司。 從那些突襲行動找到的文件, 發現他們一直在偽造運送的文件, 所以海關關員完全不會知道 這些產品到底是誰寄出的。 當警方查核其中一個銀行帳號時, 他們找到了近三百萬歐元, 從西班牙完成洗錢用不到兩年; 在那些突襲的兩天後, 那幫歹徒嘗試賄賂一間 法律事務所來取回存貨。 即使到現在,我們都還 不知道那些錢到哪裡去了, 到誰手上了, 但可以打賭, 你我絕對不會是受益人。
But these aren't just low-level street thugs. They're business professionals, and they fly first class. They trick legitimate businesses with convincing fake invoices and paperwork, so everything just seems real, and then they set up eBay and Amazon accounts just to compete with the people they've already sold fakes to.
但這些人並不只是 低層級的街頭混混。 他們是專職的企業家, 乘坐飛機的頭等艙。 他們欺騙合法的公司, 用的是讓人信服的假發票和文件, 一切看起來和真的一樣, 接著,他們在 eBay 和亞馬遜上設立帳號, 和那些已購買他們仿冒品的人競爭。
But this isn't just happening online. For a few years, I also used to attend automotive trade shows taking place in huge exhibition spaces, but away from the Ferraris and the Bentleys and the flashing lights, there'd be companies selling fakes: companies with a brochure on the counter and another one underneath, if you ask them the right questions. And they would sell me fake car parts, faulty fake car parts that have been estimated to cause over 36,000 fatalities, deaths on our roads each year.
但這不只在網路上發生。 有幾年的時間,我也會 去參加汽車零配件展, 都是在大型展覽空間舉辦, 但在遠離法拉利、 賓利汽車、及閃光燈的地方, 會有些公司在販售仿冒品: 這些公司的櫃台上擺著型錄, 櫃台下還有另一種型錄, 問對問題就可以拿到。 他們會賣我有瑕疵的仿冒汽車零件, 估計這些零件已造成 超過 36,000 起死亡事故, 那是每年在道路上的死亡數。
Counterfeiting is set to become a 2.3-trillion-dollar underground economy, and the damage that can be done with that kind of money, it's really frightening ... because fakes fund terror. Fake trainers on the streets of Paris, fake cigarettes in West Africa, and pirate music CDs in the USA have all gone on to fund trips to training camps, bought weapons and ammunition, or the ingredients for explosives. In June 2014, the French security services stopped monitoring the communications of Said and Cherif Kouachi, the two brothers who had been on a terror watch list for three years. But that summer, they were only picking up that Cherif was buying fake trainers from China, so it signaled a shift away from extremism into what was considered a low-level petty crime. The threat had gone away. Seven months later, the two brothers walked into the offices of Charlie Hebdo magazine and killed 12 people, wounded 11 more, with guns from the proceeds of those fakes. So whatever you think, this isn't a faraway problem happening in China. It's happening right here.
仿冒業開始變成了 2.3 兆美元的地下經濟, 那麼巨額的金錢能造成的傷害 實在很嚇人, 因為仿冒品會資助恐怖行動。 在巴黎街頭的仿冒運動鞋, 在西非的仿冒香煙, 在美國的盜版音樂 CD, 全都被用來資助去訓練營的旅程、 買武器和彈藥,或爆裂物的原料。 2014 年 6 月, 法國的保安部門停止監控 賽義德和謝里夫寇瓦奇之間的通訊, 這對兄弟已在恐怖份子 監視名單上有三年了。 那年夏天,他們只發現謝里夫 向中國買仿冒運動鞋, 認為這表示他從極端主義轉變成 一般人認為的低階小型犯罪, 威脅已經消失。 七個月後, 這對兄弟走進了 查理週刊總部辦公室, 殺死了 12 個人,還射傷 11 人, 他們用的槍來自那些仿冒品的收益。 不論你怎麼想,這並不是 在中國發生的遙遠問題。 它正在這裡發生。
And Paris is not unique. Ten years earlier, in 2004, 191 people lost their lives when a Madrid commuter train was bombed. The attack had been partly funded by the sale of pirate music CDs in the US. Two years prior to that, an Al Qaeda training manual recommended explicitly selling fakes as a good way of supporting terror cells.
巴黎並非唯一的。 十年前,2004 年,191 人喪命, 死於馬德里的火車炸彈事件。 那次攻擊,有部份資金來自 美國所販售的盜版音樂 CD。 那件事的兩年前, 一本基地組織的訓練手冊 明確建議販售仿冒品, 說這是資助基層恐怖組織的好方法。
But despite this, despite the evidence connecting terrorism and counterfeiting, we do go on buying them, increasing the demand to the point where there's even a store in Turkey called "I Love Genuine Fakes." And you have tourists posing with photographs on TripAdvisor, giving it five-star reviews. But would those same tourists have gone into a store called "I Love Genuine Fake Viagra Pills" or "I Genuinely Love Funding Terrorism"? I doubt it.
儘管如此,儘管有證據說明 恐怖主義與仿冒業間有關聯存在, 我們還是會去買,增加了需求, 甚至在土耳其有一間店面, 店名叫「我愛真的仿冒品」 還有觀光客在旅遊評論網站 TripAdvisor 上張貼照片, 給這間店五星的好評。 但同樣這些觀光客,會不會走入一間 叫做「我愛真的仿冒壯陽藥」或是 「我真的愛資助恐怖主義」的店? 我想不會。
Many of us think that we're completely helpless against organized crime and terrorism, that we can do nothing about the next attack, but I believe you can. You can by becoming investigators, too. The way we cripple these networks is to cut their funding, and that means cutting the demand and changing this idea that it's a victimless crime. Let's all identify counterfeiters, and don't give them our money.
許多人認為我們無能為力去對抗 組織性犯罪以及恐怖主義, 認為我們對下次攻擊什麼也做不了, 但我相信你們能。 你們也可以成為調查員。 要破壞這些網路, 就要切斷它們的資金, 那就意味著切斷需求, 改變想法,了解仿冒並非 無受害者的犯罪。 讓我們都去辨識出仿冒者, 別把我們的錢給他們。
So here's a few tips from one investigator to another to get you started. Number one: here's a typical online counterfeiter's website. Note the URL. If you're shopping for sunglasses or camera lenses, say, and you come across a website like medical-insurance-bankruptcy.com, start to get very suspicious.
以下是一個調查員之間 傳授的一些小密訣, 讓你們有個開端。 第一: 這是個典型的仿冒品網站, 注意它的網址。 (註:醫療-保險-破產.com) 如果你要買比如 太陽眼鏡或相機鏡頭, 而你找到了一個像 medical- insurance-bankruptcy.com 的網站 你要非常懷疑它。
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
Counterfeiters register expired domain names as a way of keeping up the old website's Google page ranking.
仿冒商會去註冊過期的域名, 這樣可以延用舊網站在 Google 搜尋結果的排名。
Number two: is the website screaming at you that everything is 100 percent genuine, but still giving you 75 percent off the latest collection? Look for words like "master copy," "overruns," "straight from the factory." They could write this all in Comic Sans, it's that much of a joke.
第二: 這個網站在大聲疾呼說 所有東西都是 100% 真品, 但最新的系列產品還能打到 25 折? 尋找這些字眼:「大師級複製品」、 「大批橫掃」、「直接來自工廠」。 他們用類似手寫的字體來寫, 算得上是個玩笑。
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
Number three: if you get as far as the checkout page, and you don't see "https" or a padlock symbol next to the URL, you should really start thinking about closing the tab, because these indicate active security measures that will keep your personal and credit card information safe.
第三: 如果你已經進行到結帳網頁, 而沒看到「https」或 在網址旁邊的掛鎖符號, 你真應該考慮直接關掉這網頁, 因為這些都是現行的安全措施, 能確保你的個人資料 和信用卡資料安全。
OK, last one: go hunting for the "Contact Us" page. If you can only find a generic webform, no company name, telephone number, email address, postal address -- that's it, case closed. You found a counterfeiter. Sadly, you're going to have to go back to Google and start your shopping search all over again, but you didn't get ripped off, so that's only a good thing.
好,最後一項: 去找「聯絡我們」頁面。 如果你只能找到一般性的網路表單, 沒有公司名、電話號碼、 電子郵件地址、實體地址── 那就對了,結案。 你找到了仿冒者。 不幸的是,你得回到 Google, 重新開始你的購物搜尋, 但你沒被欺詐,這是唯一的好事。
As the world's most famous fictional detective would say, "Watson, the game is afoot." Only this time, my investigator friends, the game is painfully real.
正如世界最知名的 小說偵探角色會說的: 「華生,遊戲開始了。」 (註:福爾摩斯的口頭禪) 我的調查員朋友們, 這次的差別在於遊戲是非常真實的。
So the next time you're shopping online, or perhaps wherever it is, look closer, question a little bit deeper, and ask yourself -- before you hand over the cash or click "Buy," "Am I sure this is real?" Tell your friend that used to buy counterfeit watches that he may just have brought the next attack one day closer. And, if you see an Instagram advert for fakes, don't keep scrolling past, report it to the platform as a scam.
下次,當你們在線上購物時, 或不論在哪裡購物時, 看清楚一點,問深入一點, 然後問問自己── 在交出現金或是按下「購買」之前, 先問:「我確定這是真貨嗎?」 告訴你身邊曾買仿冒錶的朋友, 他的購買可能會讓 下次的恐怖攻擊提前一天發生。 如果你在 Instagram 上 看到仿冒品的廣告, 不要只把畫面拉過去, 向平台檢舉詐欺。
Let's shine a light on the dark forces of counterfeiting that are hiding in plain sight. So please, spread the word and don't stop investigating.
仿冒的黑暗力量隱藏在眾目睽睽下, 讓我們用光去照射它們。 拜託各位,把話傳出去, 且不要停止調查。
Thank you.
謝謝。
(Applause)
(掌聲)