Officials from the anti-counterfeit agency on Friday impounded counterfeit shoes and clothes worth millions of shillings at a shop in Nakuru town believed to have been imported illegally.
The 1 pm crackdown led to the recovery of counterfeit shoes, shirts and pairs of trousers at Shikanisha enterprises along Nakuru’s Kenyatta avenue.
Addressing the press at the scene shortly after the seizure, Caspar Oluoch , an anti-counterfeit agency inspector, said that counterfeit goods have crippled industries,are a health hazard and must be stopped.
“Counterfeit goods have made genuine manufacturers of products suffer poor sales after unscrupulous traders sell products bearing their brand names,” Mr Oluoch.
He disclosed that they had received a tip-off about the counterfeit goods following an operation on similar shops in Nairobi’s Luthuli avenue and Eastleigh area.
Among the shoes brands confiscated at the shop were Adidas, Timberland, Nike and Simbaland believed to have been smuggled into the Rift Valley town.
Mr Oluoch said the agency had also received numerous complaints from shoe manufacturing companies, prompting the raid.
The officials vowed to undertake thorough investigations to arrest and prosecute the distributors of the illegal products to the market and to establish how the products got their way into the country.
The owner of the shop, Paul Kihara, who spoke to the press, said he buys the stock from Kamkunji in Nairobi, but denied being aware that they were counterfeits.
“I have been involved in this shoe selling business for two years.I normally purchase my stock from Nairobi and l have never learnt that they are counterfeits,” Kihara said.