The jewels are synthetic sapphires or rubies which have been drilled, champfered and polished to serve as bearings for gears in watches, reducing friction or mechanical parts to a bare minimum. While counterfeiting has always existed, it has become a dominant feature of our day and age. This is much easier to steal than material objects and often more attractive for criminals. Watches are a popular target of this modern form of criminality. Counterfeiters usually focus on the appearance rather than the technical parts of a watch as this results in much easier profits.
Tourists are the counterfeiters' favourite targets.
As often as they can, sellers try to pass off their counterfeit goods as the genuine article in order to procure the highest price possible. If they are dealing with someone who is not taken in by their sales pitch, they lower the figure. Consumers who knowingly purchase a counterfeit product are often motivated by curiosity, snobbishness, or simply the belief that they have made a good bargain. Purchasing counterfeit goods contributes to the operation of a whole clandestine economy , one which resorts to such repugnant methods as the exploitation of child labour, and which ruins legitimate companies, thereby creating unemployment . To protect consumers and preserve a healthy industry, we have to conduct a relentless battle against the counterfeiters and their accomplices.