Korea blocks nearly a full year's worth of fake cosmetics listings in eight months

If the first eight months are carried forward, the ministry is on course for about 56,300 blocked listings this year, some 43% above last year ^[18]. That assumes the last four months match the monthly rate so far. Southeast Asia accounts for 21,266 of this year's blocks, or 56.6% ^[5]. Europe is about 6% of the total, but its count is roughly fifteen times last year's ^[19].

A blocked listing is a count of enforcement, and a rising count fits two readings. In one, more fakes are reaching the platforms. In the other, the ministry and the brands are searching harder or in more places, and Europe's climb from a small base is the figure most open to that reading ^[6]. The ministry's data, submitted to Rep. Baek Jong-hean of the People Power Party, do not separate the two ^[2]. The case that enforcement is falling behind weakens if most of the rise traces to wider monitoring. Korea JoongAng Daily, which reported the figures, wrote that the brands' stepped-up efforts "may amount to just a drop in the bucket" ^[21].

The physical counts favour the first reading. Korea Customs Service put cosmetics at 35.9% of the counterfeit Korean-brand items it seized at the border last year ^[7], or about 42,000 items ^[20]. The one Guangxi factory Mun described held roughly 2.4 times that ^[22]. Raids that once turned up 2,000 to 3,000 items now often run into the tens of thousands, Mun said at a Korea Cosmetic Association webinar ^[10].

Mun described production split across suppliers. "There are places that make boxes, places that make containers and places that make the contents, all divided up, and a central player that puts them together into the finished product," he said ^[12]. The suppliers sit in clusters in Guangdong, Shenzhen, Guangzhou and other large Chinese cities ^[11]. "Guangdong has the containers, the contents and the logistics all in one place," he said in an interview. "If someone sets their mind to it, they can copy any brand." ^[13]

Then there is the cash. Yang Hye-yun, who heads the IP team at Logos Law Firm, said the goods trade through sites like 1688, Alibaba's Chinese wholesale marketplace, and "go to open-market sellers in Southeast Asia, Europe and the United States" ^[4]. I think this is where the money and the enforcement separate. The counterfeiter is paid when a bulk lot sells at wholesale. The ministry's blocks land later, on individual listings on retail platforms at home and abroad ^[1].

The product line has followed the buyers. "Now they are being counterfeited for export, built around overseas sales from the production stage," Yang said. "Now it has expanded to globally popular indie labels such as Ma:nyo." ^[14]

Mun, who used to lead Amorepacific's China IP team, said many Korean beauty brands with no sales in China regard counterfeits produced there as a matter for others to deal with ^[15]. "But those fakes are not made for the Chinese market," he said. "They end up on Amazon in the United States and Shopee in Brazil." ^[16]