China accused of counterfeit stamps scam
CHINA has been blamed for the scourge of counterfeit stamps flooding Britain which have landed victims with £5 penalties, The Telegraph understands.
Sources close to Royal Mail said that forgeries from the Communist country were behind a rise in complaints that letters sent with stamps bought from legitimate stores were being flagged as fraudulent. Last night, a senior figure at Royal Mail admitted that even he could not spot the difference between a counterfeit and a genuine stamp. David Gold, director of external affairs and policy, told BBC One’s Watchdog programme: “The reality is counterfeiters are now so good at what they do that even I, and I work for Royal Mail, I can’t tell the difference just by looking at them.”
Security experts and MPS described the mass forgery as an “act of economic warfare” done with the “tacit approval” of the Chinese Communist Party.
It is understood that the convincing forgeries are being bought unwittingly by small retailers, who are not required to buy stamps directly from Royal Mail and can instead source them from wholesalers in bulk. It comes after the Royal Mail last week launched a review into its new barcoded stamps amid fears customers are wrongly being forced to pay £5 to collect letters.
Kevin Hollinrake, the Post Office minister, said he expects Royal Mail to investigate how the counterfeit stamps from China entered the supply chain and were being sold in shops.
Royal Mail insists its systems are not faulty – meaning any stamps flagged as counterfeit are likely to be fakes from China. A Telegraph investigation identified four major Chinese suppliers offering to print up to one million counterfeit Royal Mail stamps a week for as little as 4p each – and deliver them to Britain within days. The stamps are also being sold through online retail giants such as Amazon and ebay – and on websites that mimic the official Royal Mail store.
The Royal Mail introduced barcode stamps in 2022 in an effort to put a stop to forgeries that were costing the postal service tens of millions of pounds every
year. The barcodes are scanned when post arrives at sorting offices and suspicious stamps are then inspected by staff. Stamp fraud has since fallen 90pc. Royal Mail insists genuine stamps will never be marked as counterfeit, unlike those printed in China.
Official Royal Mail stamps have been printed by the same family business in Wolverhampton for the past decade. However, more than 8,000 miles away, one factory in China’s third largest city, Shenzhen, claims it employs 39 members of staff and can produce up to one million per week. The biggest supplier identified is based in Shanghai. Its minimum purchase order is 20,000 stamps which are sold at $0.20 (£0.15) per stamp.
Alan Mendoza, the founder of national security think tank the Henry Jackson Society, said: “It is inconceivable that a large-scale counterfeit operation like this could be occurring without the knowledge and therefore tacit approval of the Chinese Communist Party. As such, it’s an obvious form of economic warfare and should be called out for what it is with economic repercussions for China if it does not rein it in.”
Royal Mail says it has taken down more than 300 suspicious listings in the past year including on Amazon and ebay. Amazon says it continues to collaborate with Royal Mail to “improve proactive detection mechanisms”. There are also counterfeit stamp listings on ebay with one detailing in the product description that it was manufactured in China. An ebay spokesman said: “We proactively block millions of counterfeit items every year.”
A Royal Mail spokesman said: “We regularly monitor online marketplaces to detect suspicious activity and work closely with retailers and law enforcement to identify those who produce counterfeit stamps. We work closely with a number of police forces to apprehend offenders and search premises. In recent cases we have recovered stamps with a retail value of over £250,000.”