In early 2025, the Trump administration began to place tariffs on countries that already had them on the U.S., like China, Brazil, and many in Europe. China has already begun to experience deflation but a new book reveals that the business sector likely to be impacted most is the $500,000,000,000 counterfeiting business there.

According to Ko-Lin Chin, professor of criminal justice at Rutgers School of Criminal Justice, counterfeiting tops the list of organized crimes committed worldwide.  Counterfeiters argue that, like movie piracy, they are a victimless crime (no one buying a fake Gucci bag was going to buy a real one if fakes didn't exist any more than poor people in China were paying US $20 for Thunderbolts) but in Counterfeited in China: The Operations of Illicit Businesses Chin argues that it does have a meaningful impact on brand owners and the economy. It even impacts state law enforcement because ignoring counterfeits is like large cities that abandon 'broken windows' law enforcement. It leads to a lot more casual crime.


Caution: At $38 for a paperback, it is clearly a price set by professors who will force students to use student loan money to buy it for their class.

Chin links the expertise gained to increases in human trafficking, drug trafficking, and money laundering.

China is the runaway global capital of counterfeit manufacturing so Chin examined the modus operandi of counterfeiters. He examined individual and group characteristics of counterfeiters and their relationships with organized crime, the economic aspects of counterfeiting, the relationships among counterfeiting, violence, and corruption, the role of the Chinese communist dictatorship is enabling it through corruption.