LAGOS — Nigeria’s counterfeit goods crisis has taken a more disturbing turn, with the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) revealing that some Chinese syndicates previously importing fake products into the country are now establishing manufacturing plants and distribution networks locally.
The development means counterfeiters are increasingly bypassing the traditional route of shipping fake goods from China, instead producing them inside Nigeria and using locally established logistics networks to move the products into the market.
NAFDAC Director of Investigation and Enforcement, Martins Iluyomade, who disclosed this development, said intelligence available to the agency showed that foreign operators were identifying fast-moving products in Nigeria, obtaining samples and sending them to China for replication before allegedly reproducing and distributing the counterfeits locally.
“Before, to fake a product, you needed to go to China to bring it. Now, they are here with us,” Iluyomade said, stressing the changing character of the counterfeit trade.
He said NAFDAC had consequently begun targeting illegal logistics facilities allegedly operated by foreign nationals as part of efforts to dismantle the networks supporting the manufacture and distribution of fake products.
The agency’s warning is particularly significant given the nature of products involved, with adulterated toothpaste, contaminated bottled water, fake cosmetics and unwholesome dairy products among items raising public health concerns.
NAFDAC Director-General, Mojisola Adeyeye, said the agency’s intensified enforcement operations in Lagos and the South-East had led to the confiscation and destruction of regulated products estimated at more than N1.5 trillion.
Adeyeye disclosed that the crackdown also produced 64 convictions between June 2025 and June 2026, describing the figure as the highest number of convictions recorded by the agency within a one-year period.
Among those convicted was an operator of an illegal beverage laboratory, who was sentenced to five years in prison in December, while other cases involving alleged counterfeiters remain before the courts.
NAFDAC said prosecutions are also continuing against suspects arrested in Kano, Sokoto, Delta and Anambra states over the alleged importation and distribution of counterfeit oral-care products.
