COLOMBO, Sept 19: Sri Lanka’s police raided a factory turning out counterfeit ICC World Twenty20 T-shirts and seized stocks of spurious merchandise, a senior officer said on Wednesday.

Deputy Inspector-General Anura Senanayake said they carried out the crackdown on fake World Twenty20 merchandise following a complaint from the International Cricket Council (ICC) over trade mark infringements.

“We have arrested a person who produced fake T-shirts and recovered stocks from several retail outlets,” Senanayake said. “Investigations are underway.”

The ICC said local manufacturers were in the process of turning out ‘large quantities’ of fake team shirts belonging to the 12 countries competing in the World Twenty20 tournament, which opened in Sri Lanka on Tuesday and ends on Oct 7.

The governing body’s legal chief Iain Higgins said in a statement that counterfeit goods were a “menace” to all their global events.

“The ICC is determined to protect not only the valuable commercial rights of its partners, but also the interests of the public who may find themselves unwittingly purchasing inferior counterfeit products,” he said.

Sri Lanka has a successful $4.1-billion garment manufacturing industry which produces clothing for some of the world’s top international brands.—AFP