In 2024, Austrian customs authorities seized 128,898 counterfeit products worth over €38 million based on their original retail price. According to the Finance Ministry’s annual report, this marks the third-highest value since records began. A total of 6,327 shipments were intercepted under the EU’s Anti-Counterfeiting Regulation, leading to 9,974 proceedings.

The vast majority of intercepted shipments involved counterfeit goods ordered online. Of the total, 6,223 packages — roughly 98 percent — were online orders. However, these only accounted for about 10 percent of the total number of counterfeit items (12,443), indicating that online purchases tend to involve smaller volumes per shipment.

Concerns over counterfeit medications

The ministry expressed particular concern about the rise in counterfeit medications entering Austria. Counterfeit and illegal medicines not only cause economic harm to the pharmaceutical industry, but also pose a serious risk to public health, as they are often not produced according to proper formulations and may contain dangerous ingredients.

In total, 378,109 counterfeit or otherwise illegal medications were confiscated in 2024. Although this is about half the amount seized in 2023 (801,863 items), the number of intercepted shipments rose by 6 percent to 7,147.

21 pallets of counterfeit detergent intercepted

In addition to typical counterfeit items such as handbags, shoes, clothing, and watches, customs also intercepted unusual shipments in 2024. These included 21 pallets of detergent weighing 16,300 kilograms, intended for a wholesaler in Germany, as well as 6,000 potency pills, 50 kilograms of smoking tobacco, and more than 170,000 cigarettes that travelers attempted to bring in from Cairo.

According to the ministry, potency and fertility products topped the list of seized counterfeit medicines, followed by sleeping pills, tranquilizers, and pain or anti-inflammatory medications.