Of course, it’s not just moped-riding watch thieves—there’s an illicit secondary market to be fed. Counterfeit watches are used in bait-and-switch scams where photos of a real watch are shown to a buyer who then ends up with the fake. The same trick is played on pawnbrokers, who are fed a string of legitimate watches before being duped by a knockoff.
According to a May 2025 report from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the global fake goods trade was worth $467 billion in 2021—the most recent data available—and accounts for 2.3 percent of all global trade, rising to 4.7 percent in the European Union. Clothing…
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