Brazil police seize counterfeit World Cup jerseys, stickers
RIO DE JANIERO: Police in football-mad Brazil seized World Cup contraband including counterfeit jerseys and some 200,000 Panini stickers in Rio de Janeiro, authorities said Friday. Images published by the police show piles of Panini World Cup album stickers stacked on a table, as well as a collection of counterfeit Brazil national team jerseys bearing the number 10. Officials discovered the contraband on Thursday night in a bus in Nova Iguacu on the northern outskirts of Rio, police said in a statement. “All the seized material will be subjected to forensic analysis and will subsequently be destroyed,” the statement read. “The investigation is still underway to identify those responsible for the manufacture and distribution of the counterfeit goods,” it added. Brazil is the only nation to have won the World Cup five times — more than any other team. Panini soccer stickers, which are collected and pasted into a World Cup album, are hugely popular among Brazilians during every tournament.
