‘It’s a cancer’: why Naples is the fake designer goods capital of Europe

A heritage in tailoring and leather, a port, unemployment and an influx of cheap foreign labour have helped a mafia-run counterfeiting market flourish in Naples

While luxury fashion houses are trying to stamp out counterfeits, many customers seem unconcerned about buying them. ‘It does not bother me,’ says one teen

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A seller carries counterfeit bags in a street in Rome. Italy’s estimated US$6.5 billion-US$7.5 billion market in counterfeit luxury goods, centred on Naples, generates money for the mafia. Photo: AFP

Published: 7:15pm, 9 Apr 2024

As top brands like Gucci and Prada prepare to report billions in sales this month, luxury fakes on the streets of Naples, Italy, are also yielding a jaw-dropping cash stream – for the mafia.

The teeming southern metropolis is ground zero for Italy’s estimated €6 billion-€7 billion (US$6.5 billion-US$7.5 billion) counterfeit market, where fake handbags, sunglasses, clothing and shoes flourish, hawked in plain sight to buyers willing to score a knock-off bargain.

“Which brand do you like? What colour, what model?” asks a persistent seller at the “Market of Fakes” spread out over back alleys near the gritty city’s central railway station.

Men arrive hauling overstuffed blue plastic bags, from which emerge Gucci baseball hats, Fendi wallets, Hermès belts and bright orange Louis Vuitton shoeboxes, sold from rickety tables at a fraction of the price of their originals.

An officer of the Guardia di Finanza, the Italian police in charge of financial crime and smuggling, checks trucks in the commercial area of the port of Naples. Photo: AFP

Counterfeits are a global phenomenon, whether fake fashion, toys, electronics, food or pharmaceuticals. They are estimated by the OECD club of developed countries to represent 2.5 per cent of world trade.

Italy – home of the most luxury fashion brands – is the clear leader in counterfeit seizures within the European Union, accounting for 63 per cent of items confiscated by police in 2022, according to a November EU report.