Tens of thousands of counterfeit running shoes, toiletries and footballs were seized at the Malta Freeport over the past weeks, the Customs department said on Friday.

Four separate containers were found to be carrying counterfeit goods ranging from shoes to toothpaste, shampoo and footballs.

Officials from Customs’ container monitoring unit, intellectual property rights unit and iscanning team worked together to identify and confirm the finds.

The four containers were found to contain, respectively:

- 19,484 pairs of counterfeit running shoes
- 24,912 tubes of toothpaste, 23,184 roll-on deodorants and 35,784 bottles of hair tonic, all counterfeit
- 94,668 bottles of counterfeit shampoo
- 7,476 fake footballs

Legal representatives of the items’ various right holders were contacted and confirmed that the seized items were fakes, Customs said.

The companies are now expected to file charges in civil court against the companies responsible.

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