Hong Kong’s Hang Heung bakery falls victim to mooncake counterfeiters ahead of Mid-Autumn Festival as shop marks 100th anniversary
- Second time the Hang Heung Cake Shop, founded in 1920, is targeted by bootleggers within three years
- Customs seizes hundreds of boxes holding counterfeit mooncakes in Yuen Long, arrests four people

Hong Kong’s century-old Hang Heung bakery has fallen victim to mooncake counterfeiters, customs has revealed after seizing 340 boxes of the bogus treats bearing the shop’s forged trademark, along with 200 fake redemption vouchers.
The suspected ringleader of the enterprise accused of making the counterfeits in mainland China was detained during a raid of a Yuen Long warehouse on Friday, senior superintendent Tse Kwok-keung, of the Customs and Excise Department’s Intellectual Property Investigation Bureau, said on Monday.
The arrest of the 77-year-old man came hours after a customs swoop on a restaurant in the same district that was selling mooncake knock-off brands and vouchers. The restaurant’s director and two staff members were taken into custody.
The fake products were distinguishable from the genuine ones because the gang used carton boxes rather than metal tins as packaging, he added.
Explaining why the syndicate used a different package design, Tse said he believed the counterfeiters were trying to market the fakes as a “Hong Kong brand but manufactured in mainland China”.
