HALIFAX, Canada – Partnership and co-operation will be the focus of the 2008 International Law Enforcement Intellectual Property (IP) Crime Conference opening today in Halifax as it addresses the growing international threat of counterfeiting and piracy.

Co-hosted by INTERPOL and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), in co-operation with Underwriters Laboratories Inc., the three-day event (June 24-26) will bring together more than 380 law enforcement investigators, legal advisors and private sector representatives from 49 countries.

Leading experts at the conference will highlight how IP crime directly threatens national economies as well as public health and safety. The need for national and international enforcement authorities to co-ordinate their efforts and co-operate with IP rights holders in the private sector is also high on the agenda.

Evidence shows that virtually all major transnational organized crime groups are involved in product counterfeiting, generating huge profits which often fund additional criminal activities across all sectors, thus requiring law enforcement, governments at all levels, the private sector and international partners to work closely together to effectively target this crime.

In this respect, the conference will hear how INTERPOL’s network of 186 National Central Bureaus (NCBs) and tools such as its new Database on International Intellectual Property (DIIP) Crime – designed to identify links between transnational cross-industry organized IP crime activity and other types of organized crime – are essential to ensuring global co-operation among law enforcement agencies and with the private sector.

'Transnational organized criminals manufacture and distribute counterfeit and pirate products on an industrialized scale with the sole intention of generating massive illicit profits,' said John Newton, INTERPOL’s IP Crime project manager. 'They do so without the slightest regard for often vulnerable consumers who do not realize an apparent bargain purchase can be hazardous.'

Superintendent Ken Hansen, Director of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) Federal Enforcement, said that the trade in counterfeit goods lacked any form of quality control vital to ensuring that health and safety standards are met, putting all consumers at risk.

'We all share the same concerns, particularly the threat this crime poses to the health and safety of our citizens,' he said.

INTERPOL believes that the social, health and economic damages arising from the production and sale of fake products are substantial, with many of the victims of transnational organized IP crime including people suffering from life threatening diseases who unknowingly use counterfeit medicines containing little or no active ingredients.

There will be a press conference at the Marriott Harbourview Hotel, Halifax, at 1000 (1300 GMT) on Wednesday 25 June. For press arrangements and more information please contact: RCMP National Media Relations, +1 (613) 993-2999