Russian Counterfeit Engine Oil uncovered

[Welly]

Found online an interesting little story and pics of counterfeiters found making thousands of bottles of genuine* engine oils:

http://www.automotorblog.com/watch-coun ... il-russia/

[KozmoNaut]

That's absolutely amazing, they even make sure the jugs and labels match the real thing.

Probably not a good idea to buy motor oil from Ivan down at the pub, for less than half price. Then again, buying anything from Ivan down at the local pub, for less than half price was probably never a good idea.

[steve_earwig]

Mother Russia...one of the most renowned countries for counterfeit products, starting with sports articles, mobile phones...

I thought that was China

...and also engine oil for BMW , Volkswagen , Ford , Toyota

The fake Shell, Mobil or Castrol oils were to be sold to different auto parts shows in Moscow.

There's some right shonky translation going on here Anyway, looks like this stuff only ended up in Russia (and maybe a few neighbouring countries - I must go see Goran some time ) but it's not really unexpected, there are people that will counterfeit anything to make a fast buck, from medicines to complete cars, so the usual rule of "if it's too good to be true it probably is" applies. Don't buy engine oil off some guy you met in a bar...

What would have been useful was some ways of identifying this oil, maybe something about the casting of the bottles or the printing on the labels, there's lots of pictures but nothing helpful that I can see