A CRACKDOWN on counterfeit goods in the workplace has been launched in Southampton.

The City Council's trading standards team has distributed warning posters around factories and offices in a bid to stamp out the sale of pirate CDs, computer games and DVDs as well as goods like cigarettes and alcohol.

It has been launched in conjunction with the Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers Association.

A trading standards spokesman said: "We have had good success in combating the sale of counterfeit goods in markets and car boot sales and we believe they have now moved into the workplace area."

The department has written letters to heads of firms across the city to urge them to crack down on counterfeit goods being sold.

It said: "There are many places and ways the counterfeiters use for the distribution of their products.

"One of the recognised distribution points are workplaces and factories where there seems to be a ready market for these goods.

"Southampton City Council Trading Standards service is at present trying to establish a working relationship with local businesses to prevent the sale of these products within the workplace.

"Far from being a 'victimless crime' it is local jobs in the manufacturing, distribution and retail sectors that suffer."

Bosses are being urged to also look out for telltale signs of goods being distributed.

They include:

Lists of CDs or PlayStation games with a corresponding price being circulated around the workplace by specific people

Sums of money changing hands and payments being made to specific people on a regular basis

People bringing in bags of goods and distributing them to different people

Shift work with someone constantly attending the workplace when not actually working, coming in early or waiting late to meet other shifts.