Contrefaçon en Europe : le vent en poupe

Abstract

Counterfeiting and hacking are a widespread and growing phenomenon deeply integrated within criminal strategies with other illegal activities such as illicit traffics of narcotics and arms smuggling. It thus deserves our awareness.
Counterfeiting, unlike mostly thought of, is not limited to luxury brands and encompasses consumption goods such as cigarettes, spare parts and legal drugs (medicine). It evolved to become industrialized and fully integrated within international trade.
The worldwide reach of counterfeiting threatens national securities and economies. All the more, it sometimes shows close link with terrorism networks while being heavily invested by organized crime. Such situation probably makes of property rights protection one of the very top security issue of the 21st century.