The Civil Court has issued an interim order to stop the import and trade in goods imported by unauthorized persons.

The imported goods were Camel brand cigarettes.

CGT Pvt Ltd, which acquired the importation of the goods on December 21 this year, filed a civil suit in the Civil Court alleging that it had been importing the goods for the past 20 years as the authorized distributor of Camel brand cigarettes. 

However, a company called Exotic Enterprises has recently imported counterfeit (fake) goods of the brand.

Exotic Enterprises has fraudulently imported goods of the brand by describing a name similar to the name of the goods imported by CGT. The goods imported by Exotic Enterprises are labeled as belonging to GT International and CCT/Male is written as a similar name to the company.

When it was checked whether CCT was a registered business in the Maldives, it was stated that there was no business with such a name in the country.

The purpose of this is to import and sell the goods in Maldives knowing that CGT is its authorized distributor and to show that the person belongs to CGT, the CGT said in its statement to the Civil Court.

Through such a massive fraud, CGT is losing customer trust and suffering irreparable damage as others are importing and selling fake goods that it has been selling for 20 years as an authorized distributor.

The CGT said the exotic company had imported 200 cases of the fake goods and kept them in a bonded warehouse and out of them 10 cases have been cleared. The CGT therefore sought an interim injunction against the relevant authorities to stop the clearance of the remaining 190 cases in the Civil Court.

Judge Aishath Azfa Abdul Ghafoor issued an order ordering the exotic company not to deal with the imported goods as the authenticity of the goods was questionable.

The civil court also ordered the customs to temporarily suspend the clearance of any part of the goods and ordered the police to stop the sale of this fake goods in Maldives.