French customs recently intercepted a batch of "special cargo" from China at the Port of Le Havre—300 ultra-realistic luxury replicas mimicking top brands like Louis Vuitton, Chanel, and Hermès. Élodie Blanc, head of authentication, confessed: "The craftsmanship of these counterfeits defies belief—we resorted to mass spectrometry to detect microscopic discrepancies in leather dyes. These are the most sophisticated replicas seized in a decade."