Over the last two days, local Playstation 3 owners have been up in arms over reports from numerous gamers that their imported games have been detained at Customs under the suspicion that they are possibly counterfeit copies.
A complaint against SterKinekor Games was posted on HelloPeter, alleging that the Distributer is somehow behind the detainment of the title in question.
Many console gamers import their games from international e-tailers such as Shopto.net, as often international pricing significantly undercuts local pricing, even when one takes import duties, shipping fees and taxes into account.
We immediately contacted SterKinekor, who whole heartedly denied having any involvement in the detainment of any products coming into South Africa.
We then got in touch with the Customs official that is working closely on the case at hand. He explained to us that the detainment process has nothing to do with SterKinekor, and is a routine check brought on by suspicious circumstances.
He went on to elaborate, revealing that 18 games came through customs in the space of a few days; all from one source: Shopto.net. He explained that a focused amount of similar imports coming from a single source automatically led to the suspicion that the goods may be pirated. He assured us that this is fairly standard practice at SA customs.
Our source at customs also confirmed that it is not just PS3 games from Shopto.net that have been detained. There were 18 games sent from Shopto.net that are being detained, most of which have nothing to do with SterKinekor, further supporting the local distributer’s defense.
The suspicious items have been sent to SAFACT, in accordance with normal Customs regulations, and should be released in the next five days.
As of now, there is no evidence that SterKinekor is behind the detainment of these titles.
We are quite surprised, and indeed impressed that Customs is acting with such vigilance in controlling the influx of pirated media content.
In time, local Customs officials will most probably come to recognize Shopto.net as a legitimate supplier, so we can hope that detainments like these will not be too common.
