Deception is a powerful tool – whether in a military strategy or in forgery, piracy, and counterfeiting schemes. But instead of victory on the battlefield, the use of deception in counterfeiting results in personal gain at the expense of the victims.

Although you may not think about it very often (if at all), deception has been around for a very long time, probably as long as life itself has existed on this planet. For millions of years, plants, insects, and animals have survived by hiding from predators, trying to be inconspicuous, mimicking other species, or even appearing more fearsome than they really are. We humans, of course, have raised the use of deception to even higher levels of sophistication. As a tool of both generals and diplomats, it can decide the outcome of battles and the fate of nations. It is incorporated into the games and sports we play and magicians use it to entertain us. Unfortunately criminals also use it to steal billions of dollars from consumers and brand owners in the form of counterfeit products.

Deception is the deliberate effort to cause the target of the deception to believe something which is not true with the goal of leading him or her to act in a way that serves the deceiver’s interests. In the world of military and intelligence operations, the goal of deception is to mislead and misinform your adversary with regard to your own intentions and capabilities so that he acts in the way you want him to act. Plan FORTITUDE, the deception plan protecting the Allied invasion of France at Normandy in World War II, is one of the best known examples of the use of deception in war; however, deception is not limited to military affairs. The same principles that make deception a potent component of a general’s strategy also apply to the strategies employed by criminals in their forgery, piracy, and counterfeiting schemes. Instead of victory on the battlefield, the use of deception in counterfeiting results in personal gain at the expense of the victims.

In the world of military and intelligence operations, a successful deception operation can produce catastrophic results for the target. Likewise, successful counterfeiting operations have the potential to be equally catastrophic in both economic and human terms. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) estimated that international trade alone in counterfeit or pirated products approached US$ 200 billion in
2005. In addition, the International Anti-counterfeiting Coalition (IACC) has documented how counterfeiting poses a serious threat to public health and safety due to fake aircraft and automotive parts, pharmaceuticals, and consumer goods products.

Military deceptions are almost always successful. In his classic empirical study of the topic, Stratagem: Deception and Surprise in War, Dr. Barton Whaley analyzed 168 strategic and tactical military operations and found that 73 percent of the strategic and 53 per cent of the tactical operations he examined involved both surprise and deception. Whaley went on to conclude that the use of deception was almost always successful regardless of the sophistication of the deception target. Given the size and scope of current worldwide counterfeiting activities, it seems obvious that the use of deception in counterfeiting is just as, or even more, successful.

The reasons for deception’s success are beyond the scope of a short article; however there are two important reasons (one psychological, the other economic) which bear mentioning because of their relevance to counterfeiting. The psychological power of deception is derived from a wide variety of cognitive biases that affect how human beings perceive, recall, and process information from the environment. These biases do not usually interfere with our ability to accurately perceive and understand the world around us; however, they do make us vulnerable to optical illusions, magic tricks, military and diplomatic deception, and, of course, counterfeiting. Deception is so successful because several cognitive biases make it almost certain that we will see what we expect to see. Both military deception planners and counterfeiters exploit these biases. In World War II, Allied deception planners exploited the Germans’ belief that the invasion of France would come at Pas de Calais instead of Normandy. Likewise, counterfeiters exploit the consumer’s belief that they are purchasing a genuine, brand name product.

The other reason for deception’s success is economic. Military deception has a consistently high return on investment. It provides a consistently high success rate for a very small investment in men and material. Counterfeiting, as a form of deception, also enjoys a very high return on investment. Thanks to technology and globalization, criminals can produce and distribute counterfeit products at far less cost than brand owners while the penalties for being caught are minimal.

Given that deception is so easy and is almost always successful, how can it be countered? 
William R. Harris, who, according to Dr. Whaley, coined the term “counter-deception” in 1968, proposed that countering deception involves three related concepts:

Detecting the adversary’s attempts to deceive
Adopting countermeasures that reduce the likelihood and adverse consequences of the deception
Coordinating the first two concepts into a counter-deception system

Our examination of the research related to counter-deception suggested that there are nine themes that would ideally work together synergistically in the kind of counter-deception system Harris envisioned. These themes are shown in Figure 1 with anti-counterfeiting examples shown within each of the boxes. The themes are organized along five functional dimensions of counter-deception operations. Intelligence functions include awareness of deception cues, the detection and exposure of deception operations, and the discovery and penetration of the deceiver’s real capabilities and intentions. Operational functions include negating or mitigating deception’s effects and exploiting the deceiver’s own deception plan.

In their book, Counterfeiting Exposed: Protecting Your Brand and Customers, David Hopkins, Lewis Kontik, and Mark Turnage describe a number of actions that organizations can take to protect their brand and customers from counterfeiters. The actions they describe are consistent with the framework shown in Figure 1 and include:

Emphasizing that before an organization can organize to address the problem of counterfeiting, the organization has to recognize that it has a problem – This is a critical lesson that is common to both deception and counterfeiting and corresponds directly to the awareness function of counter-deception in Figure 1. Recognizing the problem is also the first step to mitigating or negating the effects of counterfeiting activities involving the organization’s brand.
Creating an effective anti-counterfeiting task force – This is an organizational measure that spans both the intelligence and operational functions of counter-deception. Many military and intelligence organizations create special counter-deception units to coordinate intelligence analysis and counter-deception operations. Like their intelligence counterparts, the goal of the anti-counterfeiting task force is to increase the counterfeiter’s work factor, that is, making it more expensive and more risky for him to operate and ultimately less successful. 
Using private investigators to detect, analyze, and even operate against counterfeiters – The role private investigators play in anti-counterfeiting spans the full range of intelligence and operational counter-deception functions. As always, human reasoning powers are critical countering deception and private investigators often fulfill a role similar to that of an intelligence analyst. They collect and analyze information that is often ambiguous, inconsistent, or contradictory and use that human reasoning to produce threat assessments, situation assessments, and actionable intelligence for use in anti-counterfeiting operations or legal proceedings. Private investigators often take an active operational role in support of law enforcement activities as well.
Pursuing legal remedies – It is highly unlikely that any legal remedy is available to the victim of a military deception since deception is an accepted strategy in most cultures. Nevertheless, legal remedies are a form of counter-deception operation aimed at mitigating or negating the effects of counterfeiting activities.
Employing anti-counterfeiting technology solutions – From the intelligence perspective, overt and covert technologies play an important role in detecting and exposing the counterfeiter’s attempts to deceive consumers. These technologies fulfill an operational function by helping to mitigate or negate counterfeiting’s effectiveness and by making it possible for investigators and law enforcement officials to conduct anti-counterfeiting operations.

 
As we saw earlier, those who seek to deceive us for their own gain operate at an advantage.  Countering that advantage requires a holistic approach that is based on four fundamental principles of counter-deception. First, you must know yourself. Recognizing that the problem exists and developing an understanding of your own vulnerabilities is the first step. Second, you must know your adversary. In the context of counterfeiting, this means focusing attention on the means that the counterfeiter has at his disposal such as doctrine, training, personnel, experience, and technology. The third principle is know your situation. In warfare, the use of large scale deception operations is often related to situational factors such as asymmetric power relationships between adversaries. This requires intelligence analysts to be sensitive to situational factors that might indicate deception is involved. Unfortunately, brand owners face a situation where counterfeiting has become endemic and ubiquitous. In this context, the know your situation principle means that brand owners must be aware that counterfeiting will be a factor in nearly any commercial situation they encounter.

The final principle, know your channels, is just as important in anti-counterfeiting as it is in counter-deception. In counter-deception, controlling as many of the target’s channels of information as possible is critical to the success of the deception. For consumers, the know your channels principle can be summed up by the old adage “consider the source.” What seems too good to be true probably is. For brand owners, the principle translates into the admonition to exert strong control over your supply chain including your own production facilities in order to lower the likelihood that unauthorized products are produced or distributed.

The fundamental principles of deception have remained unchanged for millions of year and human inclination to use deception for competitive advantage is likely to continue as long as humans are around. Likewise, technological advances and continued growth in global trade make it certain that counterfeiting will not only remain a serious problem but will likely increase in scope and sophistication. This will place increased demands on both consumers and brand owners to protect themselves from this expanding threat. There is no easy solution; however, consumers and brand owners who understand the principles of counter-deception can make it more difficult for the counterfeiter to operate, increase his costs of doing business, and mitigate or negate counterfeiting’s effects.