Authorities Will Crack Down On People Selling Counterfeit Merch At BLACKPINK’s Upcoming Concerts

They have been monitoring counterfeit BLACKPINK merch for a while.

The Intellectual Property Police will appear at BLACKPINK‘s concert site to strengthen security against people selling counterfeit goods.

On September 14, the Korean Intellectual Property Office announced that they plan to patrol the finale performances of the BLACKPINK WORLD TOUR [BORN] to be held at the Gocheok Sky Dome in Seoul on September 16 and 17.

Since last month, the Intellectual Property Police have been monitoring counterfeit BLACKPINK merchandise sold online and confirmed that there were many inauthentic items. Some counterfeit goods were produced by sellers not authorized to sell official merchandise, such as K-Pop lightsticks provided by agencies.

After collecting sufficient information during the monitoring process, the Intellectual Property Police conducted extensive investigations into large-scale and habitual sellers. They took measures such as deleting posts and accounts of sellers who posted counterfeit product listings online.

They also discovered that these counterfeit merchandise were usually sold at the concert venue on the day of the show. Therefore, they plan to monitor the venue to prevent fraudulent sellers.

The head of the Intellectual Property Police, Park Joo Yeon, expressed concern over the increasing number of fake goods that come with the growing popularity of K-Pop.

As K-culture gains global recognition, there is an increasing number of counterfeit goods distributors trying to profit from it… We hope that through this crackdown, a culture of respecting authentic goods will be established.

— Park Joo Yeon, head of the Intellectual Property Police

These upcoming BLACKPINK concerts in Seoul will mark the end of their 64-concert journey as they toured 34 cities worldwide over the past 11 months. It will also be their first performance in Korea after about a year since October last year.