After years of investigations and significant expense, Chinese police and Bohning’s CEO/Owner Larry Griffith have taken down several Chinese counterfeit operations. Significant amounts of counterfeit archery goods were seized as a result of early morning raids conducted April 11th. It all began a few years ago when archers notified Bohning of what appeared to be poor-quality Blazer® vanes. Upon receiving the vanes, Bohning quickly identified them as counterfeit. All Bohning vanes are, and always have been, manufactured at the Bohning facility in Lake City, Michigan, United States. As a result, identifying the substandard material and processes used in these counterfeit vanes was not a difficult task for Bohning. Leads from consumers and archery dealers proved key in establishing the large scale of counterfeit operations. Bohning worked in very close collaboration with lawyers in Beijing, as well as the Chinese police, whose assistance was instrumental.

“Not only do counterfeit goods undermine the research and development efforts our company puts into producing quality products, in the case of archery, they are a major safety risk. Take Bohning nocks, for example. We produce them all at the Bohning facility, and test them to the max to make sure they are capable of withstanding increasing bow speeds—–the Bohning brand signifies quality and safety. When another company counterfeits those nocks, you can bet they haven’t put the work into it that we have. If that counterfeit nock fails and an archer’s bow blows up, who is going to take responsibility? Not the counterfeiter, that’s for sure.”—–Larry Griffith, CEO and owner of Bohning Co., LTD