AHMAD ZAMRONI/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
Burn unit: Anticounterfeiting is often left to a brave few, who are hampered by a lack of resources.
Suresh Sati, a large and cheerful man from a small city in northeastern India, has been hunting down counterfeit goods for more than half his 49 years. From the moment I meet him at my hotel in Delhi, I can tell that he enjoys his work. Most days, Sati makes the rounds visiting his undercover agents, who live near the main wholesale markets in Delhi, where most fakes are traded. They pass on news and rumors about new dealers and crooked police. As we set off down the road toward one of the city’s sprawling markets, Sati smiles nostalgically as he recalls his first anticounterfeit raid, back in 1981, on a small-scale outfit manufacturing knockoff TV antennas. His work has changed a great deal since then; his targets today are far better financed, organized, and dangerous. These days, Sati runs a company called “The Protector,” which leads raids for multinational corporate clients. His bread-and-butter work: hunting for fake drugs.
Back in his basement office the next day, in an unremarkable building in residential Delhi, Sati...
