In a spectacular action, the automotive and industrial supplier Schaeffler has destroyed a total of 30,000 counterfeit products with a total weight of ten tons. Including primarily rolling bearings and similar products, all seized in Europe over the past two and a half years. In cooperation with a recycling company in Schweinfurt, Schaeffler first disabled the counterfeits, then pressed them into scrap and finally melted them in a steel mill to return the valuable resource to the recycling loop.

Rolling bearings are safety-relevant components - therefore the use of counterfeit products with low quality may entail live-threatening consequences. Furthermore, malfunctions and machine downtime cause high costs for the providers. For this reason, Schaeffler owns a special security department for discovering counterfeiting cases. When counterfeit products are identified they will be secured and temporarily stored as evidence before destroying them once the criminal proceedings have been completed.

According to the German Engineering Federation (VDMA), damage of around 6.5 billion Euro results from product piracy every year. This number reveals the importance of active product protection for example to prevent counterfeits of OEM and aftermarket parts.

Image: Schaeffler Technologies AG & Co. KG