Counterfeit Products Including Cosmetics Worth 4.5 Billion Won Sold on Korean Marketplaces

What happened?

The trademark special judicial police of the Korean Intellectual Property Office and the Central Investigation Unit on Hazardous Substances at the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety received a tip that counterfeit goods were circulating on Coupang, Naver and other platforms, and traced the distribution route through a joint investigation. It was described as the first case in which the two agencies established a distribution route together.

The broker who was caught conspired with a manufacturer in Shenzhen, China, and from October 2024 to November 2025 sold 61 types of counterfeit cosmetics and health functional foods worth about 4.5 billion won, roughly 83,000 units, through Korean online marketplaces. The operation leased a warehouse in Chungbuk as its base, storing counterfeit goods that arrived by international parcel and shipping them on to buyers. The stored volume seized on site alone came to 87 types worth about 1.3 billion won at market prices, roughly 14,000 units, and across all items uncovered the total reached about 97,000 units worth some 5.8 billion won.

The detail cosmetic brands should study most closely concerns quality. In some functional cosmetics and health functional foods, none of the relevant functional ingredients or indicator substances were detected. In the case of counterfeit water purifier filters, the existing 'made in China' marking was removed and a new 'made in Germany' marking was attached.

That said, this is the outcome announced by the investigating authorities, not a set of facts confirmed at trial. Details such as which brands suffered how much damage, or how many buyers were actually involved, are not part of what has been disclosed. So this case is more accurately read as an illustration of how counterfeit distribution routed through Korean marketplaces works, rather than as a measure of any particular brand's losses.

1. Fakes become 'genuine' in the warehouse, not the factory

The heart of this case is not where the goods were made but the domestic base. The counterfeits were produced abroad, yet once they passed through a warehouse in Korea, they reached consumers as an ordinary domestic parcel sent by a domestic seller. Delivery speed, waybill and dispatch location are all indistinguishable from a normal domestic transaction.

A brand that assumes fakes only enter through direct overseas purchase will miss this route. With the overseas-shipping signal gone, the consumer judges on price and reviews alone, and when something goes wrong they contact the brand's customer service.

So the starting point for any check is the list of sellers that appears when you search your own product name. The harder cases to spot are precisely the non-official sellers who price at the normal level.

2. 'No ingredients detected' is a question of trust, not of quality

That none of the functional ingredients or indicator substances were detected in some products means a consumer who bought a counterfeit used it and concluded it did not work. That experience is recorded not as a judgment on the counterfeit but as a judgment on the brand.

Negative reviews, return requests and the community memory that 'this brand was disappointing' accumulate without distinguishing counterfeit from genuine. This is where the money spent on development and testing disappears most pointlessly.

It is worth building an authenticity check into how you handle customer enquiries. Confirming the point of purchase, the lot number, the expiry date and the printing on the container first lets you separate a genuine quality issue from a counterfeit issue.

• Does your enquiry form have fields for point of purchase and lot number?
• Can you trace production history and shipping destination back from a lot number?
• Have you documented internally the identifying features of genuine containers and labels?
• Does your response manual put an authenticity check first when negative reviews appear?

3. Channel checking is quality management, not marketing

Many brands treat the marketplace seller list as a pricing task for the marketing team. The moment counterfeits enter the mix, however, it becomes a quality management matter. If a consumer cannot confirm that what they received is what you made, your manufacturing standards never reach them.

In practice, the first step is assigning someone to monitor on a regular schedule. Recording sellers and price levels found by searching your product and brand names, then comparing them against your official distribution routes, makes anomalies visible early.

Watching only for unusually low prices is not enough. As in this case, counterfeits can be sold at prices close to the genuine article, so it is better to look at seller history and the origin of product images alongside price.

4. Without secured rights, your response is slow

Reporting counterfeits and requesting that sales be stopped both rest on the premise that the brand holds rights in the mark and the design in question. When securing those rights is delayed, the time between finding a problem and acting on it grows.

Brands that also export should understand at the planning stage that a Korean registration alone does not produce the same response abroad. It is safer to lay out target markets and the scope of rights coverage together.

The specific filing scope and procedure differ by country and product type, so make these decisions with a patent attorney or similar specialist who knows your sales plan.

5. Authenticity features cost less when set during development

Add an anti-counterfeiting feature later and you have to remake components. Decide it early in development and it can often be handled within the existing container and label specification. Label printing method, the position of the lot number, the sealing method: these are items already part of the production specification, and they can be designed as identifying features.

If you produce through OEM or ODM, it is better to write these elements into the specification sheet. Only when the document records what information is printed where and how do you have a basis for comparison against products in the market later.

At the same time, writing the scope of resale and the list of official sellers into your distribution contracts gives you grounds for identifying volumes that have left the route.

The first question for the brief

Write this on the first line of the brief: what can a consumer use to confirm this product is genuine, and is that method written into the specification today? Counterfeits attach themselves to products that sell well. Start responding only after sales have grown and you begin from a position where opinions about the brand have already formed.