Cut-price branded perfumes and fake high-end handbags line the ornate alleys of Istanbul's Grand Bazaar, with traditional merchants saying the luxury counterfeits are stripping the marketplace of its character.
Where heritage Turkish crafts once flourished under the Ottoman-era marketplace's painted ceilings, the elegant carpet store run by Hasim Gureli is now surrounded by shops selling designer dupes, Agence France Presse reported.
"Back in the day, imitations were rare," said Gureli, who is vice-president of the bazaar's traders' association and a member of its board of directors.
"When some people started selling fake bags, they kept themselves hidden. They were afraid of the state," the carpet-seller added.
Many others among the bazaar's old-timers, who have fond memories of the small workshops that used to fill its labyrinthine alleyways, despair at seeing it overrun by fraudulent facsimiles.
Two aisles down, tea set-seller Gazi Uludag lamented that the Grand Bazaar has "lost its unique character".
"There is nothing but imported or counterfeit goods left and it's getting worse every year," he said.
In her handmade carpet store, Florence Heilbronn-Ogutgen bemoaned the fact that an artisan friend "who used to make real, beautiful bags in very good leather" had to shutter his shop, unable to make a living.
For the shopkeeper, who has been at the bazaar since 1998, artisans "can no longer survive" in the face of competition from the dubious dupes.
"These days, the finest boutiques are the counterfeit ones!" she said.
"They're the only ones left who can afford the $10,000 to $15,000 a month rent on the main alley. The bazaar has lost its soul."
Cheap luxury
One of the world's largest covered markets, the almost six-centuries-old Grand Bazaar attracts millions of tourists every year -- many of them lured by the promise of cheap luxury.
"All of Europe comes here! I've even had footballer's wives," beamed 36-year-old Kemal, reluctant to give his surname for fear of checks on his merchandise.
Kemal made his living selling "made in Türkiye" counterfeits for 15 years, before luxury fakes began taking over each of the bazaar's hallowed shop windows one by one.
His imitation Celine calfskin and Saint Laurent quilted leather handbags "are of the same quality as the originals, but five to 10 times cheaper", the vendor promised.
Whatever the bag, a knock-off can be found at the Grand Bazaar.
"If you can find it on the Champs-Elysees, then you can find it here," he said.
'Very high profits'
As one of the main countries for the production and transit of counterfeit goods, along with China and Hong Kong, knock-offs are ubiquitous in Türkiye.
The trade supports a whole economy of its own, from the small retailers to the manufacturers who also export their counterfeits to the European Union.
"They make very high profits. You can see handbags being sold for thousands of dollars in the Grand Bazaar," said Dilara Bural, a criminologist at the UK's University of Bath.
Organized crime may be at work, "but we can't generalize and say that every single counterfeiting scheme in Türkiye is linked to organized crime. That's not true," she underlined.
