Posted on 7/26/2002


Nokia mobile phones and Nintendo game consoles were the runaway favorites of smugglers caught bringing fake goods into the European Union in 2001, figures released by the EU showed on Friday.

Customs officers in the 15 EU member states seized about 530,000 counterfeit Nokia products in 2001, or 52 percent of electrical items intercepted.

The haul was more than five times the number carrying the brand of Nokia's rivals Ericsson, Siemens and Motorola Inc..

Fake Nintendo products made up 48 percent of all toys and games seized, or about 750,000 items. No breakdown of the category was available, but an EU official said it included games consoles.

Neither Microsoft Corp. nor Sony Corp., Nintendo's big rivals in the games console market, were listed as having significant numbers of imitations in the same category.

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