CORRECTED: Firm in Takamatsu sold furniture with forged...TAKAMATSU, Japan, Jan. 24 Kyodo A furniture company in Takamatsu sold nearly 20,000 pieces of furniture with forged made-in-prison logos between 1998 and 2002, prison sources said Friday. The alleged forgery forgery, in art forgery, in art, the false claim to authenticity for a work of art. The Nature of Forgery Because the provenance of works of art is seldom clear and because their origin is often judged by means of subtle factors, art involves the so-called ''CAPIC'' logos designed by the Correctional Association, a prison welfare organization affiliated with the Justice Ministry. The association has been implicated im·pli·cate tr.v. im·pli·cat·ed, im·pli·cat·ing, im·pli·cates 1. To involve or connect intimately or incriminatingly: evidence that implicates others in the plot. 2. of using the CAPIC CAPIC Canadian Association of Photographers and Illustrators in Communications CAPIC Canadian Association for Production and Inventory Control (Region 8 of APICS) CAPIC Caring About People International Corporation logos to sell furniture imported from Southeast Asia as products made at Okayama Prison. CAPIC is the acronym for Correctional Association Prison Industry Cooperation. The furniture company, one of 10 firms designated by the Justice Ministry as a ''prison sponsor company,'' forged 60,000 CAPIC logo seals and sold about 19,400 pieces of ''CAPIC furniture'' produced by local furniture makers. The furniture company, whose name has been withheld, has since been barred from participating in prison product fairs and denied business from the Correctional Association, the sources said. According to according to prep. 1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians. 2. In keeping with: according to instructions. 3. the Justice Ministry's Correction Bureau, the oval-shaped CAPIC logo seals, which have since been replaced, measured 3.5 centimeters by 2 cm. A Correctional Association official admitted that the seals could be easily forged if anyone wanted to do so, and that the handling of the seals was entirely left to the rules of each prison. The products made in prison from start to finish bear gold CAPIC logos, while products made with parts obtained from outside bear silver CAPIC logos. The seals were kept at each prison and were supposed to be affixed af·fix tr.v. af·fixed, af·fix·ing, af·fix·es 1. To secure to something; attach: affix a label to a package. 2. on products as they were shipped out. The forged logo seals were almost indistinguishable from the genuine seals, except that the letters were slightly bolder, the sources said. The furniture company based in the capital of Kagawa Prefecture allegedly forged 30,000 gold and 30,000 silver logo seals, and applied 7,240 gold logos and 12,160 silver logos to non-prison products. The forgery came to light after a furniture maker reported the practice to the Justice Ministry. The company, admitting to the forgery, apologized to its clients around February last year. ''Thinking about the sales, I couldn't help it,'' the president of the company told Kyodo News Kyodo News (共同通信社 Kyōdō Tsūshinsha) is a nonprofit cooperative news agency based in Minato-ku, Tokyo. It was established in 1945 and it distributes news to almost all newspapers, and radio and television networks in Japan. . The 57-year-old manager of the furniture company blamed the temptation to forge the CAPIC logos on lax supervision on the part of prison authorities, saying some furniture companies could obtain the seals directly from prison officials. The rules over the handling of the logo seals ''differed from prison to prison, and from person to person,'' he said. The Justice Ministry took action last April by replacing the old CAPIC logos with new logos that require prison employees to stamp them on prison products. |
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