🕷️ Crawler Inspector

URL Lookup

Direct Parameter Lookup

Raw Queries and Responses

1. Shard Calculation

Query:

Response:

Calculated Shard: 84 (from laksa057)

2. Crawled Status Check

Query:

curl -X POST \
  'http://laksa084.int.ahrefs:8124/' \
  -H 'Content-Type: text/plain' \
  -H 'X-ClickHouse-Database: crawler3' \
  -H 'Authorization: Basic YXBpOg==' \
  -d 'SELECT getAhrefsURLFromUnparsed(src_unparsed) AS found_url, ifNull(toUnixTimestamp(download_stamp), 0) AS crawl_time, ifNull(toUnixTimestamp(props_url_first_seen), 0) AS first_indexed_time, download_http_code AS http_code, src_unparsed AS src_unparsed, src_root_hash AS src_root_hash, history_drop_reason AS history_drop_reason, meta_title AS meta_title, meta_descriptions AS meta_descriptions, attrs_boilerpipe_text AS attrs_boilerpipe_text, attrs_markdown AS attrs_markdown, attrs_readable_markdown AS attrs_readable_markdown, meta_canonical AS meta_canonical FROM crawler3.page_info_local FINAL PREWHERE (src_root_hash, src_unparsed) IN ((getAhrefsRootHashFromUnparsed(getAhrefsUnparsedNoserviceFromURL(\'https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/28/fashion/watches-counterfeit.html\')), getAhrefsUnparsedNoserviceFromURL(\'https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/28/fashion/watches-counterfeit.html\'))) FORMAT JSONEachRow'

Response:

{"found_url":"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/02\/28\/fashion\/watches-counterfeit.html","crawl_time":1772475404,"first_indexed_time":0,"http_code":200,"src_unparsed":"com,nytimes!www,\/2026\/02\/28\/fashion\/watches-counterfeit.html s443","src_root_hash":"4566504020376537684","history_drop_reason":null,"meta_title":"How Can Watchmakers Stop the Trade in Fakes? - The New York Times","meta_descriptions":["Technology is helping, but industry insiders concede it’s an uphill battle."],"attrs_boilerpipe_text":"Advertisement\nSKIP ADVERTISEMENT\nTechnology is helping, but industry insiders concede it’s an uphill battle.\nIn one of the largest enforcement operations mounted by the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry, 1.5 tons of counterfeit watches — some 7,500 pieces — were reduced to scrap metal in Köniz, Switzerland, last fall.\nCredit...\nSwiss Watch Federation FH\nFeb. 28, 2026\nIn October, 7,500 counterfeit watches were crushed into scrap metal in Köniz, Switzerland, in one of the largest enforcement\noperations\never mounted by the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry.\nThe 1.5-ton haul, seized over several years, mainly from small postal shipments originating in China, was meant as a visible show of control in a market that has largely moved from the streets into the digital world.\nWhile perhaps impressive on its face, the operation was largely symbolic compared with the scale of the fake-watch trade. It underscored how limited the traditional anti-counterfeiting playbook has become in a market that has shifted to a decentralized digital ecosystem, where sophisticated replicas are advertised openly, at scale, through direct-to-consumer shipping networks.\n“These operations are meant to raise public awareness of counterfeiting,” Yves Bugmann, the federation’s president, said by telephone from Biel, Switzerland. “We work with local authorities on seizure efforts worldwide, covering more than 50 Swiss watch brands. We have also significantly expanded our anti-counterfeiting activities on the internet.”\nThe federation, whose website states that “tens of millions of fake Swiss watches are offered for sale every year,” employs an anti-counterfeiting team of 10 to 15 people.\nWatches are by far the most heavily targeted Swiss product in global counterfeiting, according to “\nCounterfeiting, Piracy and the Swiss Economy 2025\n,” a report by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. It found that in 2020 and 2021, watches accounted for 87 percent of worldwide customs seizures of goods infringing Swiss intellectual property.\nThe report estimated that $1.88 billion in counterfeit Swiss-branded watches were sold in 2021 alone.\nSince the coronavirus pandemic, the structure and size of the fake-watch business has shifted. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development found that 97 percent of seized counterfeit watches had been shipped in small parcels of fewer than 10 items, a model that fragmented risk and complicated law enforcement efforts. The report said shipments from China accounted for nearly 54 percent of seizures by volume and 84 percent of the overall value of seized watches in 2020 and 2021.\nIn 2024, the European Union received\nabout 4.6 billion\nlow-value parcels (defined as being worth less than €150, about $178). That amounted to about 12 million parcels per day, with more than 90 percent originating from China, nearly four times the volume recorded a year earlier.\nThe traditional model of “raiding a storefront displaying fake watches, or arresting a guy at the corner offering fake watches inside his jacket, is over, ” said Rob Holmes, an independent investigator in Dallas who tracks the online market for replicas. “Since 2021, online commerce and small-parcel shipping have become the primary conduits for counterfeit watches.”\n“There are about 23.3 million counterfeit watches circulating in the U.S. right now,” Mr. Holmes said. “They come in small packages that flood the U.S. Postal Service and U.S. customs. Obviously, they can’t inspect every single one.”\nA Community of Enthusiasts\nImage\nA fake Cartier Tank Must XL Ref. WSTA0053, with poorly finished engravings and a disguised Miyota movement\nAlongside these logistical shifts thrives a parallel market that mirrors the legitimate watch industry, where “a whole community has developed around the culture of buying a fake watch,” Mr. Holmes said. Buyers look for “indistinguishable” products “at a fraction of the price and without the waiting lists,” he said.\n“Today there is more demand for ‘nondeceptive’ top-quality fakes than there is for real watches anywhere,” he said, referring to fakes advertised as such. “Millions of people are out there knowingly looking for fakes.”\nOn TikTok, videos tagged with coded terms such as “reps,” “1:1,” and “clean factory” circulate daily, marketing replica watches and functioning as forums for information-sharing where enthusiasts trade knowledge about factories, compare versions of the same model and debate quality. New digital tools, including artificial intelligence, make it easier to impersonate brands.\n“This is a community of people who see themselves as insiders who understand how the system really works,” Mr. Holmes said. “Millions who actively promote replica watches don’t see it as counterfeiting but more as a hobby, something they’re proud of.”\nAccess to counterfeit watches has become largely frictionless. “You pick the watch, go on WhatsApp, give your address, they calculate shipping, and you pay with Zelle,” Mr. Holmes said. “If the product is seized by customs, they will just send another one. It’s part of the cost of doing business.”\nRise of the Super-Clones\nThe quality of counterfeit watches has also risen markedly, a shift that some experts trace to the globalized structure of the Swiss watch industry.\n“By relocating production to Asia, the Swiss watch industry has trained foreign suppliers to reach Swiss-level quality,” Oliver Müller, founder of the Swiss consultancy LuxeConsult, said by telephone from Geneva.\n“Around the sites where certain Swiss industrial groups have opened factories abroad, a parallel ecosystem of counterfeit products often emerges,” Mr. Müller said. “You can shut down one factory, but another one will open overnight under a new name.”\nCounterfeiters’ factories use the same machines and software as legitimate manufacturers, sometimes obtained through industrial espionage, Mr. Müller said. They can replicate case proportions, dial printing, bracelet construction and the movements themselves.\n“The quality of counterfeits is now almost at the level of the original product,” Mr. Müller said. “From the outside, even specialists struggle to tell the difference.”\nAccording to Mr. Holmes, entry-level-watch replicas typically sell for $75 to $150. Mid-tier fakes range from $150 to $500. And the top end?\n“The fastest-growing product category is the top quality or ‘super-clones,’ which can sell for several thousand dollars and, in extreme cases, around $10,000,” Mr. Holmes said. Buyers see these watches as functionally and aesthetically equivalent to real models that retail for $30,000 to $50,000 or more, “without the wait-lists or the scarcity created by the brands,” he said.\nQuaid Walker, chief executive of Bezel, a U.S.-based resale platform, said, “We are seeing counterfeits modeled on real Daytonas that sell for more than $50,000. They match the weight of a full-gold version exactly. The finishing is nearly identical, and in some cases even the movement is difficult to distinguish.”\nImage\nSometimes the watch is authentic but the paperwork was forged. Here, counterfeit papers for a Rolex Day Date 36 Ref. 18238.\nBezel’s website breaks down the brands its data identify as being the most subject to counterfeiting. Rolex accounts for about 57 percent of watches that fail Bezel’s authentication process, followed by Omega at 10 percent, Cartier at 8 percent, Breitling at 4 percent and Patek Philippe at about 3 percent.\nTo reduce the risk of dealing in counterfeits, Bezel sends every watch sold on its platform to its headquarters in Santa Monica, Calif., for inspection. “In 2025, we rejected around 27 percent of submissions to our platform,” Mr. Walker said. “That rejection rate has been constant since 2021.”\nSeveral Swiss watch brands contacted for this article, including Rolex, Cartier, Omega, Patek Philippe, Richard Mille, Audemars Piguet and Bucherer, declined to comment on their actions to combat counterfeiting.\n“This is a slippery slope for brands,” Mr. Müller said. “How counterfeiters are able to fool consumers is not a conversation they want to have.”\nDespite its silence, the watch industry “invests heavily not only in research, but also in making its products verifiably authentic,” Mr. Müller said. He said manufacturers have developed technologies embedded in newer watches, including unfalsifiable chemical markers and nano-scale laser engravings invisible to the eye, that allow them to determine whether a watch is genuine.\nMr. Bugmann said that “the Swiss watch industry speaks with a unified voice” when it comes to counterfeiting, in part because its economic impact is significant. According to the 2025 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development report, counterfeit watches resulted in an estimated $1.08 billion in lost sales in the Swiss watch sector in 2021, as well as more than 2,500 lost jobs.\n“Technically speaking, enormous progress has been made here,” Mr. Müller said. What remains more difficult is containing the growing number of ways consumers can buy timepieces outside of authorized channels. “That,” he added, “is a Sisyphean fight.”\nA version of this article appears in print on\n \n, Section S, Page 1 in The New York Times International Edition\n.\nOrder Reprints\n|\nToday’s Paper\n|\nSubscribe\nAdvertisement\nSKIP ADVERTISEMENT","attrs_markdown":"[Skip to content](https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/02\/28\/fashion\/watches-counterfeit.html#site-content)[Skip to site index](https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/02\/28\/fashion\/watches-counterfeit.html#site-index)\n\n[Fashion](https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/section\/fashion)\n\n[Today’s Paper](https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/section\/todayspaper)\n\n[Fashion](https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/section\/fashion)\\|How Can Watchmakers Stop the Trade in Fakes?\n\nhttps:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/02\/28\/fashion\/watches-counterfeit.html\n\n- Share full article\n\nAdvertisement\n\n[SKIP ADVERTISEMENT](https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/02\/28\/fashion\/watches-counterfeit.html#after-top)\n\nSupported by\n\n[SKIP ADVERTISEMENT](https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/02\/28\/fashion\/watches-counterfeit.html#after-sponsor)\n# How Can Watchmakers Stop the Trade in Fakes?\nTechnology is helping, but industry insiders concede it’s an uphill battle.\n\nListen to this article · 8:58 min [Learn more](https:\/\/help.nytimes.com\/hc\/en-us\/articles\/24318293692180)\n\n- Share full article\n\n![A pile of scrap metal, with watch cases and faces mixed in. ](https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2026\/03\/03\/multimedia\/03sp-watches-counterfeit-inyt-07-lzqw\/03sp-watches-counterfeit-inyt-07-lzqw-articleLarge.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp&disable=upscale)\n\nIn one of the largest enforcement operations mounted by the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry, 1.5 tons of counterfeit watches — some 7,500 pieces — were reduced to scrap metal in Köniz, Switzerland, last fall.Credit...Swiss Watch Federation FH\n\nBy Nazanin Lankarani\n\nFeb. 28, 2026\n\nIn October, 7,500 counterfeit watches were crushed into scrap metal in Köniz, Switzerland, in one of the largest enforcement [operations](https:\/\/www.swissinfo.ch\/eng\/culture\/major-operation-to-destroy-fake-swiss-watches\/90224148) ever mounted by the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry.\n\nThe 1.5-ton haul, seized over several years, mainly from small postal shipments originating in China, was meant as a visible show of control in a market that has largely moved from the streets into the digital world.\n\nWhile perhaps impressive on its face, the operation was largely symbolic compared with the scale of the fake-watch trade. It underscored how limited the traditional anti-counterfeiting playbook has become in a market that has shifted to a decentralized digital ecosystem, where sophisticated replicas are advertised openly, at scale, through direct-to-consumer shipping networks.\n\n“These operations are meant to raise public awareness of counterfeiting,” Yves Bugmann, the federation’s president, said by telephone from Biel, Switzerland. “We work with local authorities on seizure efforts worldwide, covering more than 50 Swiss watch brands. We have also significantly expanded our anti-counterfeiting activities on the internet.”\n\nThe federation, whose website states that “tens of millions of fake Swiss watches are offered for sale every year,” employs an anti-counterfeiting team of 10 to 15 people.\n\nWatches are by far the most heavily targeted Swiss product in global counterfeiting, according to “[Counterfeiting, Piracy and the Swiss Economy 2025](https:\/\/www.oecd.org\/en\/publications\/counterfeiting-piracy-and-the-swiss-economy-2025_6d206067-en.html),” a report by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. It found that in 2020 and 2021, watches accounted for 87 percent of worldwide customs seizures of goods infringing Swiss intellectual property.\n\nThe report estimated that \\$1.88 billion in counterfeit Swiss-branded watches were sold in 2021 alone.\n\nSince the coronavirus pandemic, the structure and size of the fake-watch business has shifted. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development found that 97 percent of seized counterfeit watches had been shipped in small parcels of fewer than 10 items, a model that fragmented risk and complicated law enforcement efforts. The report said shipments from China accounted for nearly 54 percent of seizures by volume and 84 percent of the overall value of seized watches in 2020 and 2021.\n\nIn 2024, the European Union received [about 4.6 billion](https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/world\/china\/eu-impose-3-euro-duty-small-e-commerce-parcels-july-2026-2025-12-12\/?utm_source=chatgpt.com) low-value parcels (defined as being worth less than €150, about \\$178). That amounted to about 12 million parcels per day, with more than 90 percent originating from China, nearly four times the volume recorded a year earlier.\n\nThe traditional model of “raiding a storefront displaying fake watches, or arresting a guy at the corner offering fake watches inside his jacket, is over, ” said Rob Holmes, an independent investigator in Dallas who tracks the online market for replicas. “Since 2021, online commerce and small-parcel shipping have become the primary conduits for counterfeit watches.”\n\n“There are about 23.3 million counterfeit watches circulating in the U.S. right now,” Mr. Holmes said. “They come in small packages that flood the U.S. Postal Service and U.S. customs. Obviously, they can’t inspect every single one.”\n\n## A Community of Enthusiasts\n\nImage\n\nA fake Cartier Tank Must XL Ref. WSTA0053, with poorly finished engravings and a disguised Miyota movement\n\nAlongside these logistical shifts thrives a parallel market that mirrors the legitimate watch industry, where “a whole community has developed around the culture of buying a fake watch,” Mr. Holmes said. Buyers look for “indistinguishable” products “at a fraction of the price and without the waiting lists,” he said.\n\n“Today there is more demand for ‘nondeceptive’ top-quality fakes than there is for real watches anywhere,” he said, referring to fakes advertised as such. “Millions of people are out there knowingly looking for fakes.”\n\nOn TikTok, videos tagged with coded terms such as “reps,” “1:1,” and “clean factory” circulate daily, marketing replica watches and functioning as forums for information-sharing where enthusiasts trade knowledge about factories, compare versions of the same model and debate quality. New digital tools, including artificial intelligence, make it easier to impersonate brands.\n\n“This is a community of people who see themselves as insiders who understand how the system really works,” Mr. Holmes said. “Millions who actively promote replica watches don’t see it as counterfeiting but more as a hobby, something they’re proud of.”\n\nAccess to counterfeit watches has become largely frictionless. “You pick the watch, go on WhatsApp, give your address, they calculate shipping, and you pay with Zelle,” Mr. Holmes said. “If the product is seized by customs, they will just send another one. It’s part of the cost of doing business.”\n\n## Rise of the Super-Clones\nThe quality of counterfeit watches has also risen markedly, a shift that some experts trace to the globalized structure of the Swiss watch industry.\n\n“By relocating production to Asia, the Swiss watch industry has trained foreign suppliers to reach Swiss-level quality,” Oliver Müller, founder of the Swiss consultancy LuxeConsult, said by telephone from Geneva.\n\n“Around the sites where certain Swiss industrial groups have opened factories abroad, a parallel ecosystem of counterfeit products often emerges,” Mr. Müller said. “You can shut down one factory, but another one will open overnight under a new name.”\n\nCounterfeiters’ factories use the same machines and software as legitimate manufacturers, sometimes obtained through industrial espionage, Mr. Müller said. They can replicate case proportions, dial printing, bracelet construction and the movements themselves.\n\n“The quality of counterfeits is now almost at the level of the original product,” Mr. Müller said. “From the outside, even specialists struggle to tell the difference.”\n\nAccording to Mr. Holmes, entry-level-watch replicas typically sell for \\$75 to \\$150. Mid-tier fakes range from \\$150 to \\$500. And the top end?\n\n“The fastest-growing product category is the top quality or ‘super-clones,’ which can sell for several thousand dollars and, in extreme cases, around \\$10,000,” Mr. Holmes said. Buyers see these watches as functionally and aesthetically equivalent to real models that retail for \\$30,000 to \\$50,000 or more, “without the wait-lists or the scarcity created by the brands,” he said.\n\nQuaid Walker, chief executive of Bezel, a U.S.-based resale platform, said, “We are seeing counterfeits modeled on real Daytonas that sell for more than \\$50,000. They match the weight of a full-gold version exactly. The finishing is nearly identical, and in some cases even the movement is difficult to distinguish.”\n\nImage\n\nSometimes the watch is authentic but the paperwork was forged. Here, counterfeit papers for a Rolex Day Date 36 Ref. 18238.\n\nBezel’s website breaks down the brands its data identify as being the most subject to counterfeiting. Rolex accounts for about 57 percent of watches that fail Bezel’s authentication process, followed by Omega at 10 percent, Cartier at 8 percent, Breitling at 4 percent and Patek Philippe at about 3 percent.\n\nTo reduce the risk of dealing in counterfeits, Bezel sends every watch sold on its platform to its headquarters in Santa Monica, Calif., for inspection. “In 2025, we rejected around 27 percent of submissions to our platform,” Mr. Walker said. “That rejection rate has been constant since 2021.”\n\nSeveral Swiss watch brands contacted for this article, including Rolex, Cartier, Omega, Patek Philippe, Richard Mille, Audemars Piguet and Bucherer, declined to comment on their actions to combat counterfeiting.\n\n“This is a slippery slope for brands,” Mr. Müller said. “How counterfeiters are able to fool consumers is not a conversation they want to have.”\n\nDespite its silence, the watch industry “invests heavily not only in research, but also in making its products verifiably authentic,” Mr. Müller said. He said manufacturers have developed technologies embedded in newer watches, including unfalsifiable chemical markers and nano-scale laser engravings invisible to the eye, that allow them to determine whether a watch is genuine.\n\nMr. Bugmann said that “the Swiss watch industry speaks with a unified voice” when it comes to counterfeiting, in part because its economic impact is significant. According to the 2025 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development report, counterfeit watches resulted in an estimated \\$1.08 billion in lost sales in the Swiss watch sector in 2021, as well as more than 2,500 lost jobs.\n\n“Technically speaking, enormous progress has been made here,” Mr. Müller said. What remains more difficult is containing the growing number of ways consumers can buy timepieces outside of authorized channels. “That,” he added, “is a Sisyphean fight.”\n\nA version of this article appears in print on  , Section S, Page 1 in The New York Times International Edition. 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mounted by the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry, 1.5 tons of counterfeit watches — some 7,500 pieces — were reduced to scrap metal in Köniz, Switzerland, last fall.Credit...Swiss Watch Federation FH\n\nFeb. 28, 2026\n\nIn October, 7,500 counterfeit watches were crushed into scrap metal in Köniz, Switzerland, in one of the largest enforcement [operations](https:\/\/www.swissinfo.ch\/eng\/culture\/major-operation-to-destroy-fake-swiss-watches\/90224148) ever mounted by the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry.\n\nThe 1.5-ton haul, seized over several years, mainly from small postal shipments originating in China, was meant as a visible show of control in a market that has largely moved from the streets into the digital world.\n\nWhile perhaps impressive on its face, the operation was largely symbolic compared with the scale of the fake-watch trade. It underscored how limited the traditional anti-counterfeiting playbook has become in a market that has shifted to a decentralized digital ecosystem, where sophisticated replicas are advertised openly, at scale, through direct-to-consumer shipping networks.\n\n“These operations are meant to raise public awareness of counterfeiting,” Yves Bugmann, the federation’s president, said by telephone from Biel, Switzerland. “We work with local authorities on seizure efforts worldwide, covering more than 50 Swiss watch brands. We have also significantly expanded our anti-counterfeiting activities on the internet.”\n\nThe federation, whose website states that “tens of millions of fake Swiss watches are offered for sale every year,” employs an anti-counterfeiting team of 10 to 15 people.\n\nWatches are by far the most heavily targeted Swiss product in global counterfeiting, according to “[Counterfeiting, Piracy and the Swiss Economy 2025](https:\/\/www.oecd.org\/en\/publications\/counterfeiting-piracy-and-the-swiss-economy-2025_6d206067-en.html),” a report by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. It found that in 2020 and 2021, watches accounted for 87 percent of worldwide customs seizures of goods infringing Swiss intellectual property.\n\nThe report estimated that \\$1.88 billion in counterfeit Swiss-branded watches were sold in 2021 alone.\n\nSince the coronavirus pandemic, the structure and size of the fake-watch business has shifted. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development found that 97 percent of seized counterfeit watches had been shipped in small parcels of fewer than 10 items, a model that fragmented risk and complicated law enforcement efforts. The report said shipments from China accounted for nearly 54 percent of seizures by volume and 84 percent of the overall value of seized watches in 2020 and 2021.\n\nIn 2024, the European Union received [about 4.6 billion](https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/world\/china\/eu-impose-3-euro-duty-small-e-commerce-parcels-july-2026-2025-12-12\/?utm_source=chatgpt.com) low-value parcels (defined as being worth less than €150, about \\$178). That amounted to about 12 million parcels per day, with more than 90 percent originating from China, nearly four times the volume recorded a year earlier.\n\nThe traditional model of “raiding a storefront displaying fake watches, or arresting a guy at the corner offering fake watches inside his jacket, is over, ” said Rob Holmes, an independent investigator in Dallas who tracks the online market for replicas. “Since 2021, online commerce and small-parcel shipping have become the primary conduits for counterfeit watches.”\n\n“There are about 23.3 million counterfeit watches circulating in the U.S. right now,” Mr. Holmes said. “They come in small packages that flood the U.S. Postal Service and U.S. customs. Obviously, they can’t inspect every single one.”\n\n## A Community of Enthusiasts\n\nImage\n\nA fake Cartier Tank Must XL Ref. WSTA0053, with poorly finished engravings and a disguised Miyota movement\n\nAlongside these logistical shifts thrives a parallel market that mirrors the legitimate watch industry, where “a whole community has developed around the culture of buying a fake watch,” Mr. Holmes said. Buyers look for “indistinguishable” products “at a fraction of the price and without the waiting lists,” he said.\n\n“Today there is more demand for ‘nondeceptive’ top-quality fakes than there is for real watches anywhere,” he said, referring to fakes advertised as such. “Millions of people are out there knowingly looking for fakes.”\n\nOn TikTok, videos tagged with coded terms such as “reps,” “1:1,” and “clean factory” circulate daily, marketing replica watches and functioning as forums for information-sharing where enthusiasts trade knowledge about factories, compare versions of the same model and debate quality. New digital tools, including artificial intelligence, make it easier to impersonate brands.\n\n“This is a community of people who see themselves as insiders who understand how the system really works,” Mr. Holmes said. “Millions who actively promote replica watches don’t see it as counterfeiting but more as a hobby, something they’re proud of.”\n\nAccess to counterfeit watches has become largely frictionless. “You pick the watch, go on WhatsApp, give your address, they calculate shipping, and you pay with Zelle,” Mr. Holmes said. “If the product is seized by customs, they will just send another one. It’s part of the cost of doing business.”\n\n## Rise of the Super-Clones\nThe quality of counterfeit watches has also risen markedly, a shift that some experts trace to the globalized structure of the Swiss watch industry.\n\n“By relocating production to Asia, the Swiss watch industry has trained foreign suppliers to reach Swiss-level quality,” Oliver Müller, founder of the Swiss consultancy LuxeConsult, said by telephone from Geneva.\n\n“Around the sites where certain Swiss industrial groups have opened factories abroad, a parallel ecosystem of counterfeit products often emerges,” Mr. Müller said. “You can shut down one factory, but another one will open overnight under a new name.”\n\nCounterfeiters’ factories use the same machines and software as legitimate manufacturers, sometimes obtained through industrial espionage, Mr. Müller said. They can replicate case proportions, dial printing, bracelet construction and the movements themselves.\n\n“The quality of counterfeits is now almost at the level of the original product,” Mr. Müller said. “From the outside, even specialists struggle to tell the difference.”\n\nAccording to Mr. Holmes, entry-level-watch replicas typically sell for \\$75 to \\$150. Mid-tier fakes range from \\$150 to \\$500. And the top end?\n\n“The fastest-growing product category is the top quality or ‘super-clones,’ which can sell for several thousand dollars and, in extreme cases, around \\$10,000,” Mr. Holmes said. Buyers see these watches as functionally and aesthetically equivalent to real models that retail for \\$30,000 to \\$50,000 or more, “without the wait-lists or the scarcity created by the brands,” he said.\n\nQuaid Walker, chief executive of Bezel, a U.S.-based resale platform, said, “We are seeing counterfeits modeled on real Daytonas that sell for more than \\$50,000. They match the weight of a full-gold version exactly. The finishing is nearly identical, and in some cases even the movement is difficult to distinguish.”\n\nImage\n\nSometimes the watch is authentic but the paperwork was forged. Here, counterfeit papers for a Rolex Day Date 36 Ref. 18238.\n\nBezel’s website breaks down the brands its data identify as being the most subject to counterfeiting. Rolex accounts for about 57 percent of watches that fail Bezel’s authentication process, followed by Omega at 10 percent, Cartier at 8 percent, Breitling at 4 percent and Patek Philippe at about 3 percent.\n\nTo reduce the risk of dealing in counterfeits, Bezel sends every watch sold on its platform to its headquarters in Santa Monica, Calif., for inspection. “In 2025, we rejected around 27 percent of submissions to our platform,” Mr. Walker said. “That rejection rate has been constant since 2021.”\n\nSeveral Swiss watch brands contacted for this article, including Rolex, Cartier, Omega, Patek Philippe, Richard Mille, Audemars Piguet and Bucherer, declined to comment on their actions to combat counterfeiting.\n\n“This is a slippery slope for brands,” Mr. Müller said. “How counterfeiters are able to fool consumers is not a conversation they want to have.”\n\nDespite its silence, the watch industry “invests heavily not only in research, but also in making its products verifiably authentic,” Mr. Müller said. He said manufacturers have developed technologies embedded in newer watches, including unfalsifiable chemical markers and nano-scale laser engravings invisible to the eye, that allow them to determine whether a watch is genuine.\n\nMr. Bugmann said that “the Swiss watch industry speaks with a unified voice” when it comes to counterfeiting, in part because its economic impact is significant. According to the 2025 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development report, counterfeit watches resulted in an estimated \\$1.08 billion in lost sales in the Swiss watch sector in 2021, as well as more than 2,500 lost jobs.\n\n“Technically speaking, enormous progress has been made here,” Mr. Müller said. What remains more difficult is containing the growing number of ways consumers can buy timepieces outside of authorized channels. “That,” he added, “is a Sisyphean fight.”\n\nA version of this article appears in print on  , Section S, Page 1 in The New York Times International Edition. [Order Reprints](https:\/\/nytimes.wrightsmedia.com\/) \\| [Today’s Paper](https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/section\/todayspaper) \\| [Subscribe](https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/subscriptions\/Multiproduct\/lp8HYKU.html?campaignId=48JQY)\n\nAdvertisement\n\n[SKIP ADVERTISEMENT](https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/02\/28\/fashion\/watches-counterfeit.html#after-bottom)","meta_canonical":null}

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Boilerpipe Text	Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Technology is helping, but industry insiders concede it’s an uphill battle. In one of the largest enforcement operations mounted by the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry, 1.5 tons of counterfeit watches — some 7,500 pieces — were reduced to scrap metal in Köniz, Switzerland, last fall. Credit... Swiss Watch Federation FH Feb. 28, 2026 In October, 7,500 counterfeit watches were crushed into scrap metal in Köniz, Switzerland, in one of the largest enforcement operations ever mounted by the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry. The 1.5-ton haul, seized over several years, mainly from small postal shipments originating in China, was meant as a visible show of control in a market that has largely moved from the streets into the digital world. While perhaps impressive on its face, the operation was largely symbolic compared with the scale of the fake-watch trade. It underscored how limited the traditional anti-counterfeiting playbook has become in a market that has shifted to a decentralized digital ecosystem, where sophisticated replicas are advertised openly, at scale, through direct-to-consumer shipping networks. “These operations are meant to raise public awareness of counterfeiting,” Yves Bugmann, the federation’s president, said by telephone from Biel, Switzerland. “We work with local authorities on seizure efforts worldwide, covering more than 50 Swiss watch brands. We have also significantly expanded our anti-counterfeiting activities on the internet.” The federation, whose website states that “tens of millions of fake Swiss watches are offered for sale every year,” employs an anti-counterfeiting team of 10 to 15 people. Watches are by far the most heavily targeted Swiss product in global counterfeiting, according to “ Counterfeiting, Piracy and the Swiss Economy 2025 ,” a report by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. It found that in 2020 and 2021, watches accounted for 87 percent of worldwide customs seizures of goods infringing Swiss intellectual property. The report estimated that $1.88 billion in counterfeit Swiss-branded watches were sold in 2021 alone. Since the coronavirus pandemic, the structure and size of the fake-watch business has shifted. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development found that 97 percent of seized counterfeit watches had been shipped in small parcels of fewer than 10 items, a model that fragmented risk and complicated law enforcement efforts. The report said shipments from China accounted for nearly 54 percent of seizures by volume and 84 percent of the overall value of seized watches in 2020 and 2021. In 2024, the European Union received about 4.6 billion low-value parcels (defined as being worth less than €150, about $178). That amounted to about 12 million parcels per day, with more than 90 percent originating from China, nearly four times the volume recorded a year earlier. The traditional model of “raiding a storefront displaying fake watches, or arresting a guy at the corner offering fake watches inside his jacket, is over, ” said Rob Holmes, an independent investigator in Dallas who tracks the online market for replicas. “Since 2021, online commerce and small-parcel shipping have become the primary conduits for counterfeit watches.” “There are about 23.3 million counterfeit watches circulating in the U.S. right now,” Mr. Holmes said. “They come in small packages that flood the U.S. Postal Service and U.S. customs. Obviously, they can’t inspect every single one.” A Community of Enthusiasts Image A fake Cartier Tank Must XL Ref. WSTA0053, with poorly finished engravings and a disguised Miyota movement Alongside these logistical shifts thrives a parallel market that mirrors the legitimate watch industry, where “a whole community has developed around the culture of buying a fake watch,” Mr. Holmes said. Buyers look for “indistinguishable” products “at a fraction of the price and without the waiting lists,” he said. “Today there is more demand for ‘nondeceptive’ top-quality fakes than there is for real watches anywhere,” he said, referring to fakes advertised as such. “Millions of people are out there knowingly looking for fakes.” On TikTok, videos tagged with coded terms such as “reps,” “1:1,” and “clean factory” circulate daily, marketing replica watches and functioning as forums for information-sharing where enthusiasts trade knowledge about factories, compare versions of the same model and debate quality. New digital tools, including artificial intelligence, make it easier to impersonate brands. “This is a community of people who see themselves as insiders who understand how the system really works,” Mr. Holmes said. “Millions who actively promote replica watches don’t see it as counterfeiting but more as a hobby, something they’re proud of.” Access to counterfeit watches has become largely frictionless. “You pick the watch, go on WhatsApp, give your address, they calculate shipping, and you pay with Zelle,” Mr. Holmes said. “If the product is seized by customs, they will just send another one. It’s part of the cost of doing business.” Rise of the Super-Clones The quality of counterfeit watches has also risen markedly, a shift that some experts trace to the globalized structure of the Swiss watch industry. “By relocating production to Asia, the Swiss watch industry has trained foreign suppliers to reach Swiss-level quality,” Oliver Müller, founder of the Swiss consultancy LuxeConsult, said by telephone from Geneva. “Around the sites where certain Swiss industrial groups have opened factories abroad, a parallel ecosystem of counterfeit products often emerges,” Mr. Müller said. “You can shut down one factory, but another one will open overnight under a new name.” Counterfeiters’ factories use the same machines and software as legitimate manufacturers, sometimes obtained through industrial espionage, Mr. Müller said. They can replicate case proportions, dial printing, bracelet construction and the movements themselves. “The quality of counterfeits is now almost at the level of the original product,” Mr. Müller said. “From the outside, even specialists struggle to tell the difference.” According to Mr. Holmes, entry-level-watch replicas typically sell for $75 to $150. Mid-tier fakes range from $150 to $500. And the top end? “The fastest-growing product category is the top quality or ‘super-clones,’ which can sell for several thousand dollars and, in extreme cases, around $10,000,” Mr. Holmes said. Buyers see these watches as functionally and aesthetically equivalent to real models that retail for $30,000 to $50,000 or more, “without the wait-lists or the scarcity created by the brands,” he said. Quaid Walker, chief executive of Bezel, a U.S.-based resale platform, said, “We are seeing counterfeits modeled on real Daytonas that sell for more than $50,000. They match the weight of a full-gold version exactly. The finishing is nearly identical, and in some cases even the movement is difficult to distinguish.” Image Sometimes the watch is authentic but the paperwork was forged. Here, counterfeit papers for a Rolex Day Date 36 Ref. 18238. Bezel’s website breaks down the brands its data identify as being the most subject to counterfeiting. Rolex accounts for about 57 percent of watches that fail Bezel’s authentication process, followed by Omega at 10 percent, Cartier at 8 percent, Breitling at 4 percent and Patek Philippe at about 3 percent. To reduce the risk of dealing in counterfeits, Bezel sends every watch sold on its platform to its headquarters in Santa Monica, Calif., for inspection. “In 2025, we rejected around 27 percent of submissions to our platform,” Mr. Walker said. “That rejection rate has been constant since 2021.” Several Swiss watch brands contacted for this article, including Rolex, Cartier, Omega, Patek Philippe, Richard Mille, Audemars Piguet and Bucherer, declined to comment on their actions to combat counterfeiting. “This is a slippery slope for brands,” Mr. Müller said. “How counterfeiters are able to fool consumers is not a conversation they want to have.” Despite its silence, the watch industry “invests heavily not only in research, but also in making its products verifiably authentic,” Mr. Müller said. He said manufacturers have developed technologies embedded in newer watches, including unfalsifiable chemical markers and nano-scale laser engravings invisible to the eye, that allow them to determine whether a watch is genuine. Mr. Bugmann said that “the Swiss watch industry speaks with a unified voice” when it comes to counterfeiting, in part because its economic impact is significant. According to the 2025 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development report, counterfeit watches resulted in an estimated $1.08 billion in lost sales in the Swiss watch sector in 2021, as well as more than 2,500 lost jobs. “Technically speaking, enormous progress has been made here,” Mr. Müller said. What remains more difficult is containing the growing number of ways consumers can buy timepieces outside of authorized channels. “That,” he added, “is a Sisyphean fight.” A version of this article appears in print on , Section S, Page 1 in The New York Times International Edition . Order Reprints \| Today’s Paper \| Subscribe Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT
Markdown	[Skip to content](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/28/fashion/watches-counterfeit.html#site-content)[Skip to site index](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/28/fashion/watches-counterfeit.html#site-index) [Fashion](https://www.nytimes.com/section/fashion) [Today’s Paper](https://www.nytimes.com/section/todayspaper) [Fashion](https://www.nytimes.com/section/fashion)\\|How Can Watchmakers Stop the Trade in Fakes? https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/28/fashion/watches-counterfeit.html - Share full article Advertisement [SKIP ADVERTISEMENT](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/28/fashion/watches-counterfeit.html#after-top) Supported by [SKIP ADVERTISEMENT](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/28/fashion/watches-counterfeit.html#after-sponsor) # How Can Watchmakers Stop the Trade in Fakes? Technology is helping, but industry insiders concede it’s an uphill battle. Listen to this article · 8:58 min [Learn more](https://help.nytimes.com/hc/en-us/articles/24318293692180) - Share full article ![A pile of scrap metal, with watch cases and faces mixed in. ](https://static01.nyt.com/images/2026/03/03/multimedia/03sp-watches-counterfeit-inyt-07-lzqw/03sp-watches-counterfeit-inyt-07-lzqw-articleLarge.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp&disable=upscale) In one of the largest enforcement operations mounted by the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry, 1.5 tons of counterfeit watches — some 7,500 pieces — were reduced to scrap metal in Köniz, Switzerland, last fall.Credit...Swiss Watch Federation FH By Nazanin Lankarani Feb. 28, 2026 In October, 7,500 counterfeit watches were crushed into scrap metal in Köniz, Switzerland, in one of the largest enforcement [operations](https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/culture/major-operation-to-destroy-fake-swiss-watches/90224148) ever mounted by the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry. The 1.5-ton haul, seized over several years, mainly from small postal shipments originating in China, was meant as a visible show of control in a market that has largely moved from the streets into the digital world. While perhaps impressive on its face, the operation was largely symbolic compared with the scale of the fake-watch trade. It underscored how limited the traditional anti-counterfeiting playbook has become in a market that has shifted to a decentralized digital ecosystem, where sophisticated replicas are advertised openly, at scale, through direct-to-consumer shipping networks. “These operations are meant to raise public awareness of counterfeiting,” Yves Bugmann, the federation’s president, said by telephone from Biel, Switzerland. “We work with local authorities on seizure efforts worldwide, covering more than 50 Swiss watch brands. We have also significantly expanded our anti-counterfeiting activities on the internet.” The federation, whose website states that “tens of millions of fake Swiss watches are offered for sale every year,” employs an anti-counterfeiting team of 10 to 15 people. Watches are by far the most heavily targeted Swiss product in global counterfeiting, according to “[Counterfeiting, Piracy and the Swiss Economy 2025](https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/counterfeiting-piracy-and-the-swiss-economy-2025_6d206067-en.html),” a report by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. It found that in 2020 and 2021, watches accounted for 87 percent of worldwide customs seizures of goods infringing Swiss intellectual property. The report estimated that \$1.88 billion in counterfeit Swiss-branded watches were sold in 2021 alone. Since the coronavirus pandemic, the structure and size of the fake-watch business has shifted. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development found that 97 percent of seized counterfeit watches had been shipped in small parcels of fewer than 10 items, a model that fragmented risk and complicated law enforcement efforts. The report said shipments from China accounted for nearly 54 percent of seizures by volume and 84 percent of the overall value of seized watches in 2020 and 2021. In 2024, the European Union received [about 4.6 billion](https://www.reuters.com/world/china/eu-impose-3-euro-duty-small-e-commerce-parcels-july-2026-2025-12-12/?utm_source=chatgpt.com) low-value parcels (defined as being worth less than €150, about \$178). That amounted to about 12 million parcels per day, with more than 90 percent originating from China, nearly four times the volume recorded a year earlier. The traditional model of “raiding a storefront displaying fake watches, or arresting a guy at the corner offering fake watches inside his jacket, is over, ” said Rob Holmes, an independent investigator in Dallas who tracks the online market for replicas. “Since 2021, online commerce and small-parcel shipping have become the primary conduits for counterfeit watches.” “There are about 23.3 million counterfeit watches circulating in the U.S. right now,” Mr. Holmes said. “They come in small packages that flood the U.S. Postal Service and U.S. customs. Obviously, they can’t inspect every single one.” ## A Community of Enthusiasts Image A fake Cartier Tank Must XL Ref. WSTA0053, with poorly finished engravings and a disguised Miyota movement Alongside these logistical shifts thrives a parallel market that mirrors the legitimate watch industry, where “a whole community has developed around the culture of buying a fake watch,” Mr. Holmes said. Buyers look for “indistinguishable” products “at a fraction of the price and without the waiting lists,” he said. “Today there is more demand for ‘nondeceptive’ top-quality fakes than there is for real watches anywhere,” he said, referring to fakes advertised as such. “Millions of people are out there knowingly looking for fakes.” On TikTok, videos tagged with coded terms such as “reps,” “1:1,” and “clean factory” circulate daily, marketing replica watches and functioning as forums for information-sharing where enthusiasts trade knowledge about factories, compare versions of the same model and debate quality. New digital tools, including artificial intelligence, make it easier to impersonate brands. “This is a community of people who see themselves as insiders who understand how the system really works,” Mr. Holmes said. “Millions who actively promote replica watches don’t see it as counterfeiting but more as a hobby, something they’re proud of.” Access to counterfeit watches has become largely frictionless. “You pick the watch, go on WhatsApp, give your address, they calculate shipping, and you pay with Zelle,” Mr. Holmes said. “If the product is seized by customs, they will just send another one. It’s part of the cost of doing business.” ## Rise of the Super-Clones The quality of counterfeit watches has also risen markedly, a shift that some experts trace to the globalized structure of the Swiss watch industry. “By relocating production to Asia, the Swiss watch industry has trained foreign suppliers to reach Swiss-level quality,” Oliver Müller, founder of the Swiss consultancy LuxeConsult, said by telephone from Geneva. “Around the sites where certain Swiss industrial groups have opened factories abroad, a parallel ecosystem of counterfeit products often emerges,” Mr. Müller said. “You can shut down one factory, but another one will open overnight under a new name.” Counterfeiters’ factories use the same machines and software as legitimate manufacturers, sometimes obtained through industrial espionage, Mr. Müller said. They can replicate case proportions, dial printing, bracelet construction and the movements themselves. “The quality of counterfeits is now almost at the level of the original product,” Mr. Müller said. “From the outside, even specialists struggle to tell the difference.” According to Mr. Holmes, entry-level-watch replicas typically sell for \$75 to \$150. Mid-tier fakes range from \$150 to \$500. And the top end? “The fastest-growing product category is the top quality or ‘super-clones,’ which can sell for several thousand dollars and, in extreme cases, around \$10,000,” Mr. Holmes said. Buyers see these watches as functionally and aesthetically equivalent to real models that retail for \$30,000 to \$50,000 or more, “without the wait-lists or the scarcity created by the brands,” he said. Quaid Walker, chief executive of Bezel, a U.S.-based resale platform, said, “We are seeing counterfeits modeled on real Daytonas that sell for more than \$50,000. They match the weight of a full-gold version exactly. The finishing is nearly identical, and in some cases even the movement is difficult to distinguish.” Image Sometimes the watch is authentic but the paperwork was forged. Here, counterfeit papers for a Rolex Day Date 36 Ref. 18238. Bezel’s website breaks down the brands its data identify as being the most subject to counterfeiting. Rolex accounts for about 57 percent of watches that fail Bezel’s authentication process, followed by Omega at 10 percent, Cartier at 8 percent, Breitling at 4 percent and Patek Philippe at about 3 percent. To reduce the risk of dealing in counterfeits, Bezel sends every watch sold on its platform to its headquarters in Santa Monica, Calif., for inspection. “In 2025, we rejected around 27 percent of submissions to our platform,” Mr. Walker said. “That rejection rate has been constant since 2021.” Several Swiss watch brands contacted for this article, including Rolex, Cartier, Omega, Patek Philippe, Richard Mille, Audemars Piguet and Bucherer, declined to comment on their actions to combat counterfeiting. “This is a slippery slope for brands,” Mr. Müller said. “How counterfeiters are able to fool consumers is not a conversation they want to have.” Despite its silence, the watch industry “invests heavily not only in research, but also in making its products verifiably authentic,” Mr. Müller said. He said manufacturers have developed technologies embedded in newer watches, including unfalsifiable chemical markers and nano-scale laser engravings invisible to the eye, that allow them to determine whether a watch is genuine. Mr. Bugmann said that “the Swiss watch industry speaks with a unified voice” when it comes to counterfeiting, in part because its economic impact is significant. According to the 2025 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development report, counterfeit watches resulted in an estimated \$1.08 billion in lost sales in the Swiss watch sector in 2021, as well as more than 2,500 lost jobs. “Technically speaking, enormous progress has been made here,” Mr. Müller said. What remains more difficult is containing the growing number of ways consumers can buy timepieces outside of authorized channels. “That,” he added, “is a Sisyphean fight.” A version of this article appears in print on , Section S, Page 1 in The New York Times International Edition. 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Readable Markdown	Advertisement [SKIP ADVERTISEMENT](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/28/fashion/watches-counterfeit.html#after-top) Technology is helping, but industry insiders concede it’s an uphill battle. ![A pile of scrap metal, with watch cases and faces mixed in. ](https://static01.nyt.com/images/2026/03/03/multimedia/03sp-watches-counterfeit-inyt-07-lzqw/03sp-watches-counterfeit-inyt-07-lzqw-articleLarge.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp&disable=upscale) In one of the largest enforcement operations mounted by the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry, 1.5 tons of counterfeit watches — some 7,500 pieces — were reduced to scrap metal in Köniz, Switzerland, last fall.Credit...Swiss Watch Federation FH Feb. 28, 2026 In October, 7,500 counterfeit watches were crushed into scrap metal in Köniz, Switzerland, in one of the largest enforcement [operations](https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/culture/major-operation-to-destroy-fake-swiss-watches/90224148) ever mounted by the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry. The 1.5-ton haul, seized over several years, mainly from small postal shipments originating in China, was meant as a visible show of control in a market that has largely moved from the streets into the digital world. While perhaps impressive on its face, the operation was largely symbolic compared with the scale of the fake-watch trade. It underscored how limited the traditional anti-counterfeiting playbook has become in a market that has shifted to a decentralized digital ecosystem, where sophisticated replicas are advertised openly, at scale, through direct-to-consumer shipping networks. “These operations are meant to raise public awareness of counterfeiting,” Yves Bugmann, the federation’s president, said by telephone from Biel, Switzerland. “We work with local authorities on seizure efforts worldwide, covering more than 50 Swiss watch brands. We have also significantly expanded our anti-counterfeiting activities on the internet.” The federation, whose website states that “tens of millions of fake Swiss watches are offered for sale every year,” employs an anti-counterfeiting team of 10 to 15 people. Watches are by far the most heavily targeted Swiss product in global counterfeiting, according to “[Counterfeiting, Piracy and the Swiss Economy 2025](https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/counterfeiting-piracy-and-the-swiss-economy-2025_6d206067-en.html),” a report by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. It found that in 2020 and 2021, watches accounted for 87 percent of worldwide customs seizures of goods infringing Swiss intellectual property. The report estimated that \$1.88 billion in counterfeit Swiss-branded watches were sold in 2021 alone. Since the coronavirus pandemic, the structure and size of the fake-watch business has shifted. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development found that 97 percent of seized counterfeit watches had been shipped in small parcels of fewer than 10 items, a model that fragmented risk and complicated law enforcement efforts. The report said shipments from China accounted for nearly 54 percent of seizures by volume and 84 percent of the overall value of seized watches in 2020 and 2021. In 2024, the European Union received [about 4.6 billion](https://www.reuters.com/world/china/eu-impose-3-euro-duty-small-e-commerce-parcels-july-2026-2025-12-12/?utm_source=chatgpt.com) low-value parcels (defined as being worth less than €150, about \$178). That amounted to about 12 million parcels per day, with more than 90 percent originating from China, nearly four times the volume recorded a year earlier. The traditional model of “raiding a storefront displaying fake watches, or arresting a guy at the corner offering fake watches inside his jacket, is over, ” said Rob Holmes, an independent investigator in Dallas who tracks the online market for replicas. “Since 2021, online commerce and small-parcel shipping have become the primary conduits for counterfeit watches.” “There are about 23.3 million counterfeit watches circulating in the U.S. right now,” Mr. Holmes said. “They come in small packages that flood the U.S. Postal Service and U.S. customs. Obviously, they can’t inspect every single one.” ## A Community of Enthusiasts Image A fake Cartier Tank Must XL Ref. WSTA0053, with poorly finished engravings and a disguised Miyota movement Alongside these logistical shifts thrives a parallel market that mirrors the legitimate watch industry, where “a whole community has developed around the culture of buying a fake watch,” Mr. Holmes said. Buyers look for “indistinguishable” products “at a fraction of the price and without the waiting lists,” he said. “Today there is more demand for ‘nondeceptive’ top-quality fakes than there is for real watches anywhere,” he said, referring to fakes advertised as such. “Millions of people are out there knowingly looking for fakes.” On TikTok, videos tagged with coded terms such as “reps,” “1:1,” and “clean factory” circulate daily, marketing replica watches and functioning as forums for information-sharing where enthusiasts trade knowledge about factories, compare versions of the same model and debate quality. New digital tools, including artificial intelligence, make it easier to impersonate brands. “This is a community of people who see themselves as insiders who understand how the system really works,” Mr. Holmes said. “Millions who actively promote replica watches don’t see it as counterfeiting but more as a hobby, something they’re proud of.” Access to counterfeit watches has become largely frictionless. “You pick the watch, go on WhatsApp, give your address, they calculate shipping, and you pay with Zelle,” Mr. Holmes said. “If the product is seized by customs, they will just send another one. It’s part of the cost of doing business.” ## Rise of the Super-Clones The quality of counterfeit watches has also risen markedly, a shift that some experts trace to the globalized structure of the Swiss watch industry. “By relocating production to Asia, the Swiss watch industry has trained foreign suppliers to reach Swiss-level quality,” Oliver Müller, founder of the Swiss consultancy LuxeConsult, said by telephone from Geneva. “Around the sites where certain Swiss industrial groups have opened factories abroad, a parallel ecosystem of counterfeit products often emerges,” Mr. Müller said. “You can shut down one factory, but another one will open overnight under a new name.” Counterfeiters’ factories use the same machines and software as legitimate manufacturers, sometimes obtained through industrial espionage, Mr. Müller said. They can replicate case proportions, dial printing, bracelet construction and the movements themselves. “The quality of counterfeits is now almost at the level of the original product,” Mr. Müller said. “From the outside, even specialists struggle to tell the difference.” According to Mr. Holmes, entry-level-watch replicas typically sell for \$75 to \$150. Mid-tier fakes range from \$150 to \$500. And the top end? “The fastest-growing product category is the top quality or ‘super-clones,’ which can sell for several thousand dollars and, in extreme cases, around \$10,000,” Mr. Holmes said. Buyers see these watches as functionally and aesthetically equivalent to real models that retail for \$30,000 to \$50,000 or more, “without the wait-lists or the scarcity created by the brands,” he said. Quaid Walker, chief executive of Bezel, a U.S.-based resale platform, said, “We are seeing counterfeits modeled on real Daytonas that sell for more than \$50,000. They match the weight of a full-gold version exactly. The finishing is nearly identical, and in some cases even the movement is difficult to distinguish.” Image Sometimes the watch is authentic but the paperwork was forged. Here, counterfeit papers for a Rolex Day Date 36 Ref. 18238. Bezel’s website breaks down the brands its data identify as being the most subject to counterfeiting. Rolex accounts for about 57 percent of watches that fail Bezel’s authentication process, followed by Omega at 10 percent, Cartier at 8 percent, Breitling at 4 percent and Patek Philippe at about 3 percent. To reduce the risk of dealing in counterfeits, Bezel sends every watch sold on its platform to its headquarters in Santa Monica, Calif., for inspection. “In 2025, we rejected around 27 percent of submissions to our platform,” Mr. Walker said. “That rejection rate has been constant since 2021.” Several Swiss watch brands contacted for this article, including Rolex, Cartier, Omega, Patek Philippe, Richard Mille, Audemars Piguet and Bucherer, declined to comment on their actions to combat counterfeiting. “This is a slippery slope for brands,” Mr. Müller said. “How counterfeiters are able to fool consumers is not a conversation they want to have.” Despite its silence, the watch industry “invests heavily not only in research, but also in making its products verifiably authentic,” Mr. Müller said. He said manufacturers have developed technologies embedded in newer watches, including unfalsifiable chemical markers and nano-scale laser engravings invisible to the eye, that allow them to determine whether a watch is genuine. Mr. Bugmann said that “the Swiss watch industry speaks with a unified voice” when it comes to counterfeiting, in part because its economic impact is significant. According to the 2025 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development report, counterfeit watches resulted in an estimated \$1.08 billion in lost sales in the Swiss watch sector in 2021, as well as more than 2,500 lost jobs. “Technically speaking, enormous progress has been made here,” Mr. Müller said. What remains more difficult is containing the growing number of ways consumers can buy timepieces outside of authorized channels. “That,” he added, “is a Sisyphean fight.” A version of this article appears in print on , Section S, Page 1 in The New York Times International Edition. [Order Reprints](https://nytimes.wrightsmedia.com/) \\| [Today’s Paper](https://www.nytimes.com/section/todayspaper) \\| [Subscribe](https://www.nytimes.com/subscriptions/Multiproduct/lp8HYKU.html?campaignId=48JQY) Advertisement [SKIP ADVERTISEMENT](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/28/fashion/watches-counterfeit.html#after-bottom)
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