UN ties counterfeits to organized crime
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Counterfeiting is a dangerous and growing enterprise controlled by organized criminals who are exploiting the same trade routes used for trafficking drugs, arms and human beings, the United Nations said in a report released Friday.
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Four U.S. agencies yesterday announced a coordinated attack to stem the global trade in counterfeit merchandise and pirated music and movies, an underground industry that law-enforcement officials estimate to be worth $500 billion each year.
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Council approve any &quot;preventive&quot; war, which was not the case when the United States invaded Iraq. organized crime. It criticised UN bodies, from the Security Council to the Human Rights Commission and proposed the world body.
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NUSA DUA, Indonesia  - More than 100 countries met in Bali on Monday for a U.N. anti-corruption conference to find ways of clawing back some of the billions of dollars in assets stolen by corrupt leaders.
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China has promised to pursue product pirates identified by American authorities in a new effort to stamp out its thriving counterfeit industry, the head of the U.S. customs agency said Friday.
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Federal and local authorities are trying to stop the sale of counterfeit Super Bowl merchandise in the days leading up to the game by seizing fakes.
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Cheap everyday items such as pens and disposable razors are increasingly being counterfeited and many retailers unwittingly stock their shelves with fake products, companies and officials say.
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The Office of U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) will seek to negotiate a voluntary anticounterfeiting trade agreement with several major trading partners, the office said Tuesday.The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) will focus countries on anticounterfeiting efforts, including international cooperation, best practices for fighting piracy, and developing strong legal frameworks for fighting piracy, USTR said in a news release.&quot;Global counterfeiting and piracy steal billions of dollars from workers, artists, and entrepreneurs each year and jeopardize the health and safety of citizens across the world,&quot; Trade Representative Susan Schwab said in a statement.The action earned the USTR praise from several companies and groups, including the Motion Picture Association of America and Microsoft.Developing international protections against counterfeiting and piracy is &quot;key to protecting innovation and ensuring that the global economy continues to grow unfettered by [intellectual property] theft,&quot; Jack Krumholtz, Microsoft&#39;s managing director of federal government affairs, said in a statement.Sen. Max Baucus, a Montana Democrat and chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, also applauded the USTR announcement.&quot;Intellectual property thieves aren&#39;t just stealing American ideas, they&#39;re stealing dollars from U.S. businesses and stealing jobs out from under U.S. workers,&quot; Baucus said in a statement. &quot;And the problem of intellectual property theft is rampant worldwide.&quot;The trade agreement would complement the work of President George Bush&#39;s administration to encourage other countries through the World Trade Organization to enforce intellectual-property rights, the USTR said. But the ACTA would set a higher benchmark for intellectual-property enforcement that countries can join voluntarily, USTR said.
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Security experts in Belfast estimate that paramilitary groups reap millions each year with a mix of smuggling and counterfeiting, extortion and racketeering and drug trafficking in the British-ruled province.
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Business & money: International group will track $1trillion of illicit funds.
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Authorities announced one of the biggest counterfeit luxury-goods busts in U.S. history on Thursday, with the arrests of three New Yorkers on charges of importing fake items from China worth about $100 million had they been real.
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Organized crime may have brought in more than $2 trillion in revenue last year, about twice all the military budgets in the world combined, a report issued yesterday said. The "State of the Future" report, published by the Millennium Project of the World Federation of United Nations Associations, said organized crime entities generated income from money laundering, counterfeiting, and piracy, ...
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The planned international trade agreement to fight piracy and counterfeiting could help reduce the distribution of fake semiconductors, analysts said Wednesday.
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The European Commission is to start monitoring China, Ukraine and Russia to see if they are making genuine efforts to stop counterfeit goods.
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CANCUN, Mexico  - International smugglers of  weapons and drugs are increasingly trafficking women from  Africa, Latin America and Asia to developed countries where  they are duped into working as prostitutes, Interpol said on  Wednesday.
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On Genova Street in downtown Mexico City, illegally copied CDs of music by top U.S. artists sell for 20 pesos, just under &#36;2 a piece, in tiny booths between tables overflowing with batteries, stuffed animals and cheap knockoff sunglasses. That&#039;s about one-tenth the price in nearby stores.
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Gangs of ethnic Chinese are involved in the growing trade in counterfeit anti-malarial drugs, the BBC is told.