The Royal Barbados Police Force has its radar on the counterfeiting industry.
And it is equipping its members to identify the subtle nature of the trade through a relationship with Customs in brand protection.
This is the word from Assistant Commissioner of Police Erwin Boyce after addressing the Pan-American International Insurance Corporation/Police Home work and Reading Assistance Community Outreach project at 8th Avenue New Orleans yesterday.
“There is the discussion on intellectual property and brand protection. It is becoming an international drive to look at counterfeiting and prevent counterfeiters making a headway and eating into the profits of the brand. We recognise within the context of Barbados we are beginning to see a flow, and the international brands are concerned with the ease with which things can occur in Barbados,” he told the Sunday Sun.
Boyce said it was not in Barbados’ interest to go on the outside to get some products to sell locally.
“In terms of our capability, it’s indeed a new area of investigation in the sense that it is on our agenda as part of our way forward in terms of prosecuting people for counterfeiting and detecting brands.
“We are developing that kind of relationship with customs and the brands . . . because they now [have satellites] in other Caribbean countries. They have a profound interest in how things are happening in other [islands] and that is why we have that as a focus in managing the unusual crime,” he explained.
Boyce underscored the importance of training, “to get our children in the capability mode that they can understand what is and what is not. I think we have set that path and we are having the international cooperation from the creators who are interested in stamping out this kind of scourge”.
Boyce said there were some matters before the courts that pointed to investigations by the police, but noted that was far as he wanted to go in describing what the force’s current response had been.
“We would continue to be very vigorous in moving forward the brand protection approach,” he said. (JS)
