Current status: Answered by Dorothy Bain on 25 July 2025
To ask the Scottish Government how many individuals were (a) prosecuted and (b) convicted for selling counterfeit goods in the financial year 2024-25.
A search has been performed of the COPFS database for charges received by COPFS under a) the Trade Marks Act 1994, and b) a key word search for counterfeit or fake goods on charges under the Scottish Government Classification of "Fraud”.
During the period 1 April 2024 to 31 March 2025 there was a total of 27 charges marked for court action relating to individuals. Of these 27 charges, four resulted in a conviction with 19 charges ongoing. No further action was taken in two charges and a further two charges resulted in the individual not being convicted.
Information is also provided for the period 1 April 2020 to 31 March 2024 and all information is broken down as follows:
Outcome | 2020-21 | 2021-22 | 2022-23 | 2023-24 | 2024-25 |
Convicted | 50 | 4 | 7 | 2 | 4 |
Not Convicted | 57 | 6 | 6 | 3 | 2 |
Ongoing | 6 | 0 | 22 | 31 | 19 |
No Further Action | 1 | 9 | 1 | 9 | 2 |
Total | 114 | 19 | 36 | 45 | 27 |
The information is provided under the caveat that COPFS uses a live, operational database to manage the processing of reports submitted to Procurators Fiscal by the police and other reporting agencies throughout Scotland. It is designed to meet business needs in the processing of criminal cases, rather than for statistical analysis, and the information within it is structured accordingly.
The numbers were arrived at following an interrogation of relevant charges however a manual review was not conducted to confirm accuracy.