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Published on March 12, 2008

A fake Ferrari made in Thailand became the centrepiece of an exhibition in Brussels, Belgium, on Monday warning against the dangers of pirated goods.

The Ferrari P4 - of which only three were made, in 1967 - was made in a backstreet factory in Thailand and is powered by a Subaru engine. It looks like it has just turbo-charged off an Austin Powers film set.

There were only three of these ever built. Each is worth several million dollars. But this is not one of them.

Knocked up in a garage in the countryside using Japanese parts, the Ferrari was about to be shipped to a European client when police confiscated it.

Replicating the original in every visible detail, the car is a startling example of the genius for counterfeiting that is flourishing worldwide, eating into the profits of corporations and costing governments billions in lost tax revenue. It has also been linked to child-slave labour in India and China.

Counterfeiting monster

Supermodel Yasmin Le Bon, an anti-counterfeit campaigner, posed beside the "Ferrari" to launch an international drive against counterfeiting.

Campaigners say the illicit global business has become a monster that is killing tens of thousands, funding terrorism and crime, and entrenching the victimisation of women and children in the developing world.

"This is something that really affects me because I'm in the fashion business," said Le Bon. "It's all very well buying that fake wallet in Dubai. But every time you do that, you're helping organised crime. Many people are losing their lives."

Fake designer labels remain a staple of the counterfeiting industry. But advances in digital technology and electronics mean that there is now little that cannot be quickly and cheaply reproduced and marketed as the real thing.

The result is a business worth an estimated US$600 billion (Bt18.9 trillion) a year, with one in 10 of all products sold in the world now believed to be counterfeit.

Faking is very easy

The London-based Authen-tics Foundation, which was behind the first "global anti-counterfeit summit" staged in Brussels, said: "Reverse engineering can take place literally at a key stroke, counterfeiters use 3D laser scanners and software to develop the perfect copy. Digital technology has enabled counterfeiters to produce virtually any product known to mankind."

Daily Xpress, Agencies