By Natalia Gigante, Partner at Daniel Law and Master’s Degree Holder in Intellectual Property and Innovation
The commercialization of counterfeit products represents one of the greatest challenges to intellectual property protection and the preservation of fair competition worldwide. According to the OECD and the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO), international trade in counterfeit and pirated goods is estimated at approximately USD 467 billion annually, representing 2.3% of global trade. Beyond the direct losses suffered by rights holders, counterfeiting undermines legitimate businesses, reduces tax revenues, exposes consumers to unsafe products, and generates significant revenues for organized criminal networks.
The impacts extend across multiple sectors of society. Rights holders face customer diversion, loss of revenue, reputational damage, and increased enforcement costs. Consumers are exposed to products that often fail to meet minimum quality and safety standards, particularly in sectors such as pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, automotive parts, electronics, toys, and food. Governments lose tax revenue while criminal organizations use counterfeiting as a highly profitable source of income that is frequently linked to money laundering, smuggling, corruption, and other forms of transnational crime.
Combating counterfeiting therefore requires coordinated action between the public and private sectors, combining marketplace monitoring, customs enforcement, border inspections, civil and criminal litigation, search and seizure operations, and intelligence gathering.
Latin America occupies a strategic position within this global scenario. Home to approximately 668 million people (more than 8% of the world’s population) the region has experienced significant growth in international trade and e-commerce, making it an attractive market for legitimate businesses and, equally, for criminal organizations involved in counterfeit trade.
The region’s logistics infrastructure further contributes to this challenge. Latin America comprises more than twenty countries connected through extensive land borders, international airports, and some of the largest ports in the Western Hemisphere, including Santos (Brazil), Manzanillo and Lázaro Cárdenas (Mexico), Cartagena (Colombia), Callao (Peru), Balboa (Panama), and San Antonio (Chile). These ports handle tens of millions of containers each year, serving not only legitimate commerce but also acting as major entry points for counterfeit goods, primarily originating from Asia, that are subsequently redistributed throughout the continent.
This demonstrates that counterfeiting should not be analyzed on a country-by-country basis. Criminal organizations increasingly operate through integrated transnational supply chains, in which different jurisdictions perform complementary roles as manufacturing centers, import gateways, transit corridors, warehousing locations, and distribution hubs. Free trade zones, bonded warehouses, and porous land borders further facilitate these operations, allowing infringers to diversify routes and reduce enforcement risks.
Recent enforcement experience across Latin America consistently reveals common suppliers, recurring importers, identical packaging, and overlapping online sellers operating simultaneously in multiple jurisdictions. Customs seizures likewise frequently identify shipments destined for neighboring countries after their initial entry into the region, illustrating that counterfeit networks rarely respect national borders.
For this reason, effective anti-counterfeiting strategies must adopt a regional perspective. Simultaneous monitoring across multiple jurisdictions enables rights holders to identify recurring infringers, map distribution networks, anticipate shifts in trafficking routes, and generate intelligence that would be impossible to obtain through isolated national actions.
Cross-border enforcement measures may include coordinated online monitoring, synchronized takedowns, customs recordals in multiple countries, training customs officials and law enforcement authorities, sharing intelligence among local counsel, conducting coordinated test purchases, and pursuing simultaneous civil and criminal actions. Such initiatives substantially increase the likelihood of identifying suspicious shipments while connecting isolated infringement cases into broader investigations.
Equally important is understanding the role each country plays within the counterfeit supply chain. Not every jurisdiction functions as a manufacturing hub; many primarily serve as transit routes or redistribution centers. Mapping these roles enables rights holders to focus enforcement efforts on the logistical bottlenecks that sustain regional distribution networks.
Experience demonstrates that disrupting these routes produces effects far beyond the country where enforcement occurs. Intercepting counterfeit goods before they reach regional distribution hubs reduces product availability across multiple markets, increases operational costs for criminal organizations, delays replenishment cycles, and weakens the efficiency of their distribution networks.
Finally, intelligence generated through regional monitoring programs should not be viewed merely as a source of takedown opportunities. Information regarding recurring sellers, import patterns, logistics providers, and high-volume infringers should be consolidated and shared among enforcement teams. Once combined with publicly available corporate information, customs data, and test purchase results, this intelligence can support progressively stronger enforcement measures, including cease-and-desist letters, civil litigation, criminal complaints, search and seizure operations, coordinated raids, and investigations targeting the criminal organizations behind counterfeit distribution.
As counterfeit networks continue to evolve across increasingly integrated commercial corridors, enforcement strategies must evolve accordingly. In Latin America, effective intellectual property protection depends not only on strong national enforcement, but on coordinated cross-border strategies capable of disrupting the regional networks that sustain the counterfeit trade.