Busted: An underground fake condom factory
Dusty condoms lie on the floor, old oil cans are used to store lubricant, shirtless workers handle fake brand wrappers...Welcome to an illegal condom factory in Shaoyang, China. Read more...
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Post written with the help of ChinaHush.
Dusty condoms lie on the floor, old oil cans are used to store lubricant, shirtless workers handle fake brand wrappers…Welcome to an illegal condom factory in Shaoyang, China.
Condoms were stored carelessly in dirty plastic bags in the 20m2 chinese workshop. Fake brand wrappers were produced daily on the production line. Eight illegal immigrants ran the factory from 8am to 6pm.
Local authorities arrested four suspects and seized 40,000 boxes of condoms, counterfeits of 6 different brands: Jissbon, Durex, Sixsex, Love Card, NOX, et Rough Nider, as well as 1,620,000 unpackaged condoms. The entire stock is worth 536,000 yuans (53,000 euros), making it the largest stock of counterfeit medical equipment in the Hunan province.
According to one of the suspects arrested, the underground factory has already sold more than 40,000 boxes, or 480,000 condoms in the Hunan and neighbouring provinces of Guangdong and Hubei.
In 2005, counterfeit condoms were discovered on the on the English market. Durex then appealed to users to beware of "low quality products" with "very convincing packaging."
"We always ask for factory certificates"
Marc Pointel is the founder of an online condom store.
As condom retailers, we always ask our supplier to provide us with factory certificates to guarantee that our products can be traced back to legal manufacturers.
The conditions in this condom workshop are appalling. Condoms are medical equipment. They need to respect strict size, hygiene and resistance guidelines.
Workers in an authorised factory must always wear a face mask, head dress and uniform. Lubricant must be kept in a sterile plastic container compatible with the water and glycerine it is made of. On the other hand, loose condoms in a plastic bag are no big deal: condoms themselves are not sterile. Attempting to sterilize them would make them porous.
Using counterfeit condoms is very dangerous: if it’s porous, it won’t stop viruses such as AIDS, syphilis and all other sorts of STDs. "
Photos of the factory producing fake condoms
These photos sparked outraged reactions from Chinese web users after they were published on several blogs ( here, here and here).
