Over 1.5 million Mercedes-Benz counterfeit products seized worldwide.

The brand protectors focus particularly on safety-relevant counterfeits: these do not meet the high safety and quality standards of Mercedes-Benz and can lead to severe accidents. Items such as air filters made from highly flammable materials, inferior brake components, and brake pads containing hazardous materials like lead and arsenic have been seized during raids. In 2024 alone, authorities secured more than 1.5 million Mercedes-Benz counterfeit products in 793 raids and with the help of customs worldwide — an upward trend.

Particularly, raids conducted with authorities worldwide are a crucial measure in the fight against dangerous product counterfeiting. These are often preceded by months of intensive investigations and preparations. The brand protectors at Mercedes-Benz scrutinize offers on websites, follow up on counterfeit leads, and conduct thorough research to ultimately identify the counterfeiters' production sites. The goal is to prevent the distribution of counterfeits. The investigation results are provided to the authorities responsible for conducting the raids. These authorities search the counterfeiters' workshops, where often catastrophic working conditions prevail and serious environmental damage is caused.

A notable observation by the Mercedes-Benz Brand Protection Team is that increasingly premium high-end brand products, such as those from Mercedes-Benz Maybach and AMG, are being counterfeited. This includes the modification of Mercedes vehicles in violation of intellectual property rights and even recreating entire vehicles. The brand protection team at Mercedes-Benz takes consistently action against such infringing replicas and modifications.

Additionally, counterfeiting networks continue to use online platforms and social media to widely distribute counterfeit products. They benefit from the extensive anonymity and decentralized structure of these marketplaces and technologies, as well as the fast-paced nature of social media. This is why Mercedes-Benz has been intensifying its strategic and operational measures against counterfeiting for years, particularly also in the online environment. In 2024, the brand protectors deleted over 212,000 listings of counterfeit Mercedes-Benz products and trademark-infringing content.

Collaboration with authorities is one of the success factors of the Brand Protection Team. Therefore, the brand protectors regularly support customs authorities and service providers with training sessions and informational materials for awareness and prevention.

A few simple purchasing criteria can help consumers avoid buying counterfeit products. The first step is to carefully examine suspicious offers in everyday (online) shopping. Typical warning signs of counterfeits include a significantly lower price, noticeable defects in product quality, or sales through questionable (online) sources. Sometimes, you can already tell from the product images or names that they cannot be originals, especially if Mercedes-Benz does not manufacture these products.