Counterfeit Crimes

Product Design & Development (Mantey) - It’s more profitable to sell counterfeit electronic components than it is to sell narcotics. Electronics are embedded in everything from anti-lock brakes to the space shuttle, and the market for counterfeit components is quite lucrative. “It’s more profitable to sell counterfeit electronic components than it is to sell narcotics,” says Robin Gray, the executive vice president of the National Electronic Distributors Association (NEDA). “The penalties are significantly less with probably no jail time and typically a fine. That’s why organized crime is involved in it.”

Counterfeiters have become as good as the manufacturers at making a product look like the real deal. As a result, visual inspections have become a joke — unless it’s an obvious fake — and random testing has become ineffective because counterfeiters now salt genuine product with counterfeit parts.


“If you have a reel with 1,000 parts on it, the first 200 might be the real part and the remaining 800 might be counterfeit. Are you going to pull off number 201, test it and then rewind the reel?” asks Gray. NEDA, in collaboration with many partners, is working on initiatives to prevent counterfeit parts from not only entering the authorized supply chain, but also keeping them from entering homes.


The Surface Mount Technology Association (SMTA) and Center for Advanced Life Cycle Engineering (CALCE) at the University of Maryland hold an annual Symposium on Avoiding, Detecting and Preventing Counterfeit Electronic Parts.