If you’re an anime and video games fan fond of collecting figures of your favourite characters, then you’re probably well acquainted with bootleg toys and figures that are sold at cheaper prices and usually lower quality. Even without checking, we all know that most of them come from China.

Image from The Paper.

A recent raid by the Shanghai police on a factory in the city of Dongguan has resulted in the seizing of more than one million fake toys and figures. Chinese website The Paper reports that the fakes included items from popular franchises such as One Piece, Dragon Ball, Gundam, and Pokemon.

With more twenty suspects arrested and over 1,200 toy-making tools and equipment also seized, it’s no wonder that the total amount of seized goods are worth over US$42 million (300 million yuan), as reported by China News.

Bandai Namco was so pleased with the results of the raid that they decided to gift the Shanghai police a gold-plated Unicorn Gundam as a symbol of appreciation. As pointed out by video games industry analyst Daniel Ahmad, the Shanghai police recently appeared on Chinese television to talk about the raid with their gold-plated gift being presented front and center.

Shanghai Police uncovered a group illegally selling fake gundam figures.

More than 1m items were seized with a value of RMB 300 million.

Bandai Namco presented the police with a unicorn gundam figure to thank them, which they presented during a news segment today. lol pic.twitter.com/tnzv7gG3mB

— Daniel Ahmad (@ZhugeEX) October 30, 2019

Merchandising is a big deal in the anime, manga, and video games industry. It’s why franchises like Pokemon have managed to generate more than an estimated US$90 billion in lifetime revenue.

More photos of the raid from The Paper: