1. The venue Marrakesh has a special significance to the topic for our discussion. In 1994, the agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) was signed here and thirteen years later, today we have assembled here for discussing the Crime Related aspects of Counterfeiting and Intellectual Property Rights. I sincerely hope that this discussion would find a similar success.

          2. Steady growth in the Counterfeiting and IPR offences has been a topic of discussion in many international fora. It is estimated that trade in counterfeit goods accounts for an estimated 5-7% of the legitimate trade, or in other words it generates 450 billions dollars of business annually. Industry estimates on the figures of Motion Piracy through Internet and Music Piracy respectively at 38 % and 40% of the genuine business. However, my concern is more than just the statistics –of late there has been a noticeable shift in criminal profiles and the motives for commission of these offences. In the past, these offences were mostly localized. Mostly, economic offenders operating in isolation used to commit the crime for earning quick money. Now we find increasing evidence of involvement of transnational organised gangs. They naturally find it convenient to engage in such ‘soft’ crimes, which are highly lucrative and receive low priority by the enforcement agencies. Even if they are caught and successfully prosecuted, the punishments are much lighter compared to drug trafficking and other organised crimes.

          3. From the standpoint of harming the national security and causing economic destabilization Counterfeiting of Currency clearly stands out from the rest. In the past decade we have observed un- precedented rise of this crime in India. Seizures in the recent past have been in the range of 70 –80 million rupees a year. There is also increasing evidence of sponsored counterfeiting with the sinister objectives of terrorist funding and promoting transnational organised crime. This is corroborated by the fact that in the past one year seizures outside India have been bigger and the counterfeiting is more sofisticated than the domestic seizures. Global experience suggests that many other countries, which include the USA and the countries of the European Union have been victims of a similar trend. The situation therefore calls for immediate attention from all of us, before remaining countries fall prey to schemes of organised crime syndicates .

          4. At this juncture I would like to draw your attention on another serious form of counterfeiting. A recently submitted Interpol report before the European Parliament indicates that large volumes of counterfeit anti malarial drugs have been circulating in mainland South East Asia which has caused serious damage to the health care efforts in these countries. The WHO fact sheet on counterfeit medicines describes instances of large-scale deaths of poor people in Niger, Haiti, India, and Cambodia due to consumption of spurious drugs. The US based Center for Medicines in the Public Interest predicts that counterfeit drug sales will reach US$ 75 billion globally in 2010, an increase of more than 90% from 2005. . In my view this form of counterfeiting deserves our condemnation in strongest terms, since it not only affects the economy of a country but it also causes serious damage to the health of poorest sections of the society.

          5. There are myriad other forms of counterfeiting but due to time constraint I am not discussing all of them. It would suffice to say that almost all of the serious forms of counterfeiting offences have certain common features such as loss of revenue, destabilization of economy, security and health hazards. Therefore, the combat strategies are also by and large common. Given the transnational character of the crimes, it goes without saying that international law enforcement cooperation is one of the most essential features of such efforts.

          6. There is no doubt that the international bodies have taken appreciable initiatives in combating the menace. The international conventions against Counterfeit Currency, Transnational Organised Crime, Copyrights, TRIPS, are some of the noteworthy legal instruments. The work of multilateral efforts such as INTERPOL Intellectual Property Crime Action Group (IIPCAG), WHO /INTERPOL International Medical Product Anti-Counterfeiting Taskforce (IMPACT) and that of WIPO deserve our wholehearted appreciation. But all of us know that existence of conventions and treaties make very little change in the ground realities unless the member countries follow up by domestic efforts, such as enactment of special laws, creation of specialized enforcement agencies etc. But when we are dealing with an essentially transnational issue like Counterfeiting, all the domestic efforts will be sub optimal unless these are supplemented by mutual law enforcement cooperation between nations.

          7. As a first step towards such mutual cooperation, countries should consider becoming parties to the various conventions /treaties and harmonize their legal and administrative framework for facilitating maximum cooperation to the affected country in its enforcement efforts.

          8. Across the countries there have not been many examples of successful detection and prosecution of organised crime syndicates involved in counterfeiting and IPR offences. One of the reasons is the low priority accorded to these offences. It is high time police agencies accord high priority to these crimes, because in the years to come this form of crime is bound to reach menacing proportions.

          9. Internet has added a new dimension to the IPR crimes. Specifically, Video- Audio piracy has never been easier and online auction sites now provide a great market place for pushing counterfeit products. Therefore, INTERPOL member countries need to strengthen their Cyber Laws and enhance their capacities to combat cyber crimes, if they are serious in fighting IPR crimes.

          10. Different countries are at different stages of the learning curve when it comes to fighting Counterfeiting offences. There is a tremendous scope for learning from each other by sharing of good practices and by conducting well-structured training of the trainers programs, which can be organised by the Interpol. Also, there should be a system of generating alerts by the victim countries whenever a new modus operandi is noticed and Interpol should have a mechanism for circulating such alerts.

          11. Finally, I urge the member countries to effectively utilize the existing facilities. We should constantly review the completeness and integrity of the data we are feeding to various INTERPOL databases. There is a scope for better utilization of 24 X7 network. There is a further scope for improvement to the quality of responses to the Interpol notices.

          12. I once again draw the attention of this house on the multifarious hazards of Counterfeiting and IPR offences which have the potential to emerge as crimes of choice for the organised crime syndicates in not so distant a future and going to present numerous challenges to the law enforcement community. We cannot afford to wait until it spirals into unmanageable proportions. A time has come for learning from each other and move forward. I hope this conference would contribute feasible strategies in this direction.