The global counterfeit business is out of control, targeting everything from computer chips to life-saving medicines. It's so bad that even China may need to crack down. A year and a half ago, Pfizer Inc. got a dis-turbing call on its customer hotline. A woman who had been taking its cholesterol-lowering drug Lipitor complained that a new bottle of tablets tasted bitter. She sent the suspicious pills to the company, which tested them at a lab in Groton, Conn. The white oblong tablets looked just like the real thing—and even contained some of the active ingredient in Lipitor. But Pfizer soon determined that they were counterfeits. Over the next two months, distributors yanked some 16.5 million tablets from warehouses and pharmacy shelves nationwide. An isolated case? Hardly. Last October, Brazilian police got a tip-off about a hoard of bogus Hewlett-Packard Co. inkjet cartridges and seized more than $1 million worth of goods. Chinese police last year conducted raids confiscating everything from counterfeit Buick windshields to phony Viagra. In Guam, the Secret Service in July uncovered a network selling bogus North Korean-made pharmaceuticals, cigarettes, and $100 bills. In June, French customs seized more than 11,000 fake parts for Nokia Corp. cell phones—batteries, covers, and more. In January, U.S. Commerce Secretary Donald Evans blasted the Chinese on a visit to Beijing, demanding they step up efforts to police intellec- tual-property violations. Evans singled out the case of a General Motors Corp. subsidiary that is suing Chinese carmaker Chery Automotive for ripping off the design of its Chevrolet Spark minicar (page 70). The uncanny resemblance between the two cars, said Evans, "defies innocent explanation."
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