Hermes says bags from official outlets genuine.[File photo]

All Hermes bags purchased from official outlets are genuine, Hermes China said in a statement yesterday.

It was responding to customer concerns after a fake production ring in which company employees were said to have been involved was busted in France.

It is thought that many of the counterfeits were sold to Chinese customers.

Helen Lu, a Hermes China spokeswoman, told Shanghai Daily that Hermes could assure customers that all bags purchased from official outlets were genuine, including those in the three Shanghai stores listed on the company's website.

But customers who had bought their bags online or abroad would not be able to check their authenticity, she said.

"According to our company's regulation, we don't offer authenticity checks in China. And we don't offer checks for bags customers have bought through other channels either," Lu said yesterday

An employee at the Hermes store at Shanghai's Hongqiao International Airport was reported to have said customers could go to France to check if their bags were genuine.

Hermes China said the employee's answer was not put in a proper way, and that it was investigating the incident.

Last Thurday, French police said they had dismantled a "sophisticated counterfeit Hermes handbag syndicate," seizing fake products worth US$22.7 million and arresting 12 people in Paris and Lyon.

The ring produced counterfeits of several of its bags in undercover workshops and sold them through a distribution network in Europe, the US and Asia, Hermes said.

"The operation concludes a one-year investigation following a Hermes complaint based on clues and abnormal behavior identified through the house's internal monitoring systems," it said.

Hermes added: "Two former Hermes employees, who had been dismissed, are suspected to have organized this network in which a few current Hermes employees could also be involved."