Shanghai trader to pay for selling fake Levi's

A trader in Shanghai has been ordered to pay an American company 500,000 yuan (US$66,551) in compensation for selling fake jeans, the Shanghai Evening Post said today.

Zhong Xiaoying was also ordered to post an announcement in the Shanghai Evening Post about her violation of Levi Strauss & Co's ownership of the trademark, said the newspaper.

The verdict came more than a year after Zhong was sentenced to three years behind bars, with four years of reprieve, by a court in Shanghai for selling the fake jeans. She will avoid jail if she doesn't break the law for four years.

Zhong was fined 60,000 yuan in January last year and all her income from the illegal business was seized, said the report.

Zhong began the business in July 2004 by purchasing "a great amount of" fake jeans tagged with famous brands from Guangzhou, the capital city of Guangdong Province, said the report.

By March 2005 when Zhong's four shops were closed by local police, she had sold at least 38,000 pairs of fake famous brand jeans, including 14,500 tagged as Levi's.

Zhong earned about 1.65 million yuan from the illegal trading, said the report.

Zhong's two warehouses in Shanghai were raided in April 2005, where police found 28,600 pairs of fake brand jeans, including 12,000 pairs of fake Levi's.