• Counterfeit gangs fill fake perfume bottles with animal urine as it’s cheap 
• Fake products could cause harm to health, a luxury brand protector warned 

An undercover investigator has revealed that counterfeit perfume bottles that claim to be made by many of the world’s top luxury brands can often be filled with animal urine. 

Detective and business investigator Tamer Bakiner claims that people across the world are ‘endangering their own health’ by buying counterfeit goods, as most, if not all, are made with little to no concern for safety or health. 

‘Stop buying [them]. First of all, it is dangerous for your health, among other things they mix urine in perfumes to get the yellow color. That is disgusting.

‘Secondly, it supports a really lousy, inhumane business,’  he said in an interview with German tabloid Bild. 

Bakiner wasn’t the only person who warned that counterfeits could harm people’s health. 

Leo Longauer, the 54-year-old director of brand protection at luxury good conglomerate LVHM, which operates brands including Dior, Bulgari, Louis Vuitton, and Dom Pérignon, said that fake products can be ‘extremely dangerous for your health’.

‘[Sun]glasses are offered that, contrary to the label, have no UV protection.

‘The [perfume] mixture is filled with animal urine. Studies have shown that. It’s cheap to get.

‘Counterfeits are treated with chemicals that can cause allergies and skin irritation or rashes. This is not to be taken lightly,’ he warned. 

He said that people may actually be buying counterfeit product unknowingly as they are virtually indistinguishable from genuine products. 

‘Many counterfeits can hardly be distinguished from the original,’ he admitted. 

But the intellectual property enforcer warned that customers who buy counterfeit good, knowingly or otherwise, are ‘endangering their own health, criminals are being supported and their own economy is being disadvantaged’. 

‘The working conditions of local people, for example in Turkey, China, Vietnam or India, are inhumane. It does not meet the standards in Europe. 

‘Children are also used to work. People are being exploited – combined with human trafficking and money laundering.’

The worldwide counterfeit industry is vast and profitable.

Criminal networks that trade counterfeit goods often span the globe. Fake goods are often manufactured in poorer countries with substandard labour and safety laws before they are sold in richer countries with staggering markups. 

Europol estimates that as much as 2.5 per cent of all global trade involves the production and sales of counterfeit or substandard goods. 

This comes out to an eyewatering £360billion.  

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development said in a 2016 report that the ‘best estimates’ indicated that the UK alone imports as much as £13.6billion worth of counterfeit goods, equivalent to 3 per cent of all UK imports.