A former Salford vape trader has received a suspended jail sentence and has been ordered to pay £125k after 55,000 counterfeit items were seized.
Sunraj Singh, who traded under the company name Justt Vape Ltd, was given a 12-month suspended jail sentence at Manchester Crown Court on Tuesday November 28. He pleaded guilty to 22 offences of selling counterfeit vapes to the public.
The 55,000 counterfeit items seized from his business in Broughton included unsafe hand sanitizer from during the pandemic.
Mr Singh admitted 14 offences of breach of registered trade marks under the Trade Marks act 1994, two breaches of copyright and six offences of supplying unsafe products which were all committed by the company and Mr Singh as the sole director.
On November 21 2019, officers found more than 15,000 e-liquids which were found to be infringing trademark and copyright legalisation.
One of Mr Singh’s products used a genie image which looks identical to the genie in the Disney classic ‘Aladdin’. He said in an interview that he googled an image of a genie and used it on his products.
On December 4, 2019, police found and seized more items with counterfeit Vampire empire e-liquids, counterfeit Heisenberg e-liquids and more genie Justt Vape products.
Mr Singh was interviewed on behalf of his company, where he claimed that the Vampire logo was put on his products by the manufacturers with the image not being the same, as his had an eye-patch.
He also claimed that the genie logo was not his brand logo, despite it being all over his products and the shopfront.
In March 2020, Justt Vape Ltd was still using the genie logo on its products. Mr Singh claimed that he never checked to see if the products were legal to sell in the UK as he gave the job to another person who worked with him. He also failed to provide invoices and details of his suppliers.
On June 29th 2020, 40,000 counterfeit e-liquids were seized by Trading Standard Officers, they also collected 85.7 litres of non-compliant hand sanitiser and 94 bottles of counterfeit Comfort and Andrex hand sanitisers.
A number of these samples were found to have methanol in them which is very hazardous and is not an acceptable ingredient for hand sanitiser.
Methanol poisoning can occur through skin contact and can cause vomiting, nausea, headaches, blurred vision, blindness and permeant damage to the nervous system.
The company is no longer trading at the premises.
Councillor Barbara Bentham, lead member of the Environment Neighbourhoods and community safety, said: “I want to thank the Trading Standards team for their hard work in bringing this case to court.
“Mr Singh demonstrated a complete disregard for consumer safety and the law relating to copyright and trademarks and the court has recognised this with the sentence imposed.
“The laws are there to protect people and legitimate businesses and we will not hesitate to take action and seek to recover the proceeds of crime against serious offending.”
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