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China is allegedly flooding Britain with counterfeit Royal Mail stamps, a newspaper investigation has claimed.
Sources close to Royal Mail said fakes from China were causing a rise in complaints that stamps bought from legitimate stores were being deemed fraudulent, which can result in a £5 penalty, the Daily Telegraph reported.
The newspaper identified four Chinese suppliers offering to print up to one million counterfeit Royal Mail stamps a week, which are being sold for as little as 4p each ahead of delivery to Britain.
The fakes have also been found on Amazon and eBay and websites copying the Royal Mail official store, the newspaper said.
The Telegraph says these stamps are being bought unknowingly by small retailers, who are allowed to buy stamps from wholesalers rather than from Royal Mail directly.
Security experts told the paper it amounted to an “act of economic warfare”.
Post Office minister Kevin Hollinrake told the Daily Mail: “It is key to prevent counterfeit stamps entering our supply chain in the UK.
“The Royal Mail must do everything possible to prevent counterfeits entering our circulation and must establish where they are coming from and how they are entering our marketplace.”
However a spokesman from the Chinese Embassy in London told the Times the claims were “absurd”.
He said: “It is totally ridiculous, absurd and ill-intentional. How could one imagine a sovereign country triggers war by bringing fake stamps?
“If this case really happened, (the) first thing to do is to have (a) thorough investigation over the internal supply chain, instead of pursuing the attention of (the) media.”
A Royal Mail spokesman told the PA news agency: “We are working hard to remove counterfeit stamps from circulation.
“We regularly monitor online marketplaces to detect suspicious activity, such as sales of heavily discounted stamps and work closely with retailers and law enforcement agencies to identify those who produce counterfeit stamps.
“We work closely with a number of police forces across the country and in recent cases we have recovered stamps with a retail value of over £250,000.”
- Additional reporting by the Press Association
