Man who sold up to $40 million worth of counterfeit headphones gets two years in jail

A man accused of being one of the "most prolific sellers" of counterfeit electronics in the UK has just been sent down for two and a half years. Over 4,000 fakes, mainly consisting of knock-off Sennheiser and Monster headphones, were found at Michael Reeder's address, with a value of around £250,000 ($400,000).

However, Sennheiser claims this is just 1 percent of $40 million worth of items Reeder has sold online, which is why the German manufacturer has taken a keen interest in his prosecution. Last year, Sennheiser introduced a series of authentication technologies to prevent counterfeiting that was mainly originating in China -- including QR codes on product packaging that customers can verify online. If Sennheiser's estimate of 400,000 fake items is accurate, then it makes the UK's recent Microsoft Windows scandal look almost like small fry.

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