INNOCENT looking cardboard boxes seized at the Port of Southampton contain £1.5m of counterfeit goods – 82,320 pairs of fake Calvin Klein underpants to be precise.

Christmas is coming and so are the counterfeit goods, warn the UK Border Force, who are in the middle of one of their busiest periods of the year.

In recent weeks officers at the port have seized:

- 1,440 Superdry hoody tops worth approximately £100,000

- 450 Dyson fans and Apple chargers worth approximately £182,500 at Southampton port

- 2,112 Spiderman, Pokemon and Hello Kitty hand held fans worth £31,680

The items are discovered by a special high tech scanner truck which drags a huge x-ray arm over the shipping containers to ensure their contents match up with details on the manifest.

Essentially the machine works in the same way as the bag scanner at the airport but while every bag is scanned at the airport it is impossible to check every one of the containers which comes through Southampton, which handles more than 90m tonnes of cargo per year. Instead around 300 containers a day are scanned at Southampton.

Sean Gigg, Border Force higher officer at Southampton, said they act on intelligence, from police trading standards, HMRC and trading standards.

“There are tell-tale signs that we look for but we can’t say what those are,” said Sean. “It’s a cat and mouse game and we are doing all we can to beat the counterfeiters.”

“We are finding everything from counterfeit fans to counterfeit underpants, toys, cosmetics, watches, it’s anything that a counterfeiter can counterfeit.

“Naturally at Christmas we are going to see a lot more counterfeits being intercepted simply because of the supply and demand in the UK.

“To the average person it’s very important because you do not know what you are buying, you think you are buying a genuine product but it’s not really, it’s a counterfeit product that hasn’t been tested for safety standards.

“So, an electrical item you could plug in and it could set on fire for instance or it could have small movable parts that could fall off and choke a small child.”

During our visit to the port apart from fake Calvin Klein undies Border Force officer opened packages containing hundreds of knock-off versions of the children’s game Pie Face and action figures from the Shide Robots range..

Sean explained that once merchandise is seized Once items are seized, Border Force’s specialist international trade teams work with the owners of big brands to establish whether or not goods are genuine. If they are fake, the goods are destroyed and the rights holders can then decide whether to privately prosecute the importers.

In the previous times counterfeit items would be sold out of the back of vans and on dodgy market stalls, and while this continues today the big money is to be made on the internet.

Border Force warned consumers to steer clear of designer good at bargain basement prices. “

“We urge consumers to be careful with their purchases. If the price appears too good to be true – either at a car boot sale, a market stall or online – it probably is,” said Border Force South Director Sue Young.

Outside of Southampton recent seizures include:

l 530 Pandora charms worth approximately £45,900 at Manchester Airport

l 379 Barcelona and Borussia Dortmund football shirts at Dover Port worth approximately £16,149

l 48 pairs of Nike Vapormax trainers worth approximately £5,760 at Manchester Airport

l 16,000 Gillette Mach 3 razor blades worth approximately £143,840 at Heathrow Airport.

Immigration Minister Brandon Lewis said: “The international trade in counterfeits is linked to serious and organised crime and undercuts honest traders, damaging our economy.”

Anyone who has been sold counterfeit goods or knows someone who is selling them should contact Action Fraud on 0300 123 2040.