Cabbie pleads guilty to selling £14,000 worth of fake Audi and VW wheel caps on eBay

A Burnley cabbie has pleaded guilty to one count of selling goods with false trademarks and two counts of possessing fake goods contrary to the Trade Marks Act 1994 after he made more than £14,000 by selling fake Audi wheel caps on eBay.

Atif Amin, 31, was caught, when in April 2017, a trading standards officer logged onto eBay to conduct tests of products being sold by one user.

Prosecuting at Burnley Crown Court, Jack Troup said the officer purchased four hub caps for a price of £23.99 and once they were received they were sent for trademark analysis where it was confirmed they were counterfeit.

The court heard that in October 2017, trading standards obtained a warrant to search Amin's property Nelson where they found a total of 292 Audi hub caps and 21 VW hub caps, which were all later confirmed to be counterfeit. Mr Troup said: "The genuine retail price of these items would come to more than £10,000. "His eBay account also detailed that 689 items were sold between September 2014 and June 2017, with an approximate value of £14,000." Amin confessed to buying the hub caps from a seller in China for as little as $2 without performing any checks of their authenticity. He also failed to inform the trademark holder. Mr Troup added: "A large number of counterfeit items was bought but there was no involvement in any bigger operation." Jane Dagnall, defending , said that Amin was a married man and a father of four and worked as a "Taxi" driver and stressed that his client had not set out to mislead anyone in selling the goods. Judge Sara Dodd said: "This was a wide-scale retailing of counterfeit goods and is in no way an insignificant matter. "And under the Proceeds of Crime Act the goods will be confiscated and dealt with at a later date." As reported by the Lancashire Telegraph, Amin was made subject to a 12-month community order and told to carry out 120 hours of unpaid work.

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