Despite AI technology coming to the rescue with solutions to clean up retail’s counterfeit problem, the fraud economy keeps growing.

With many misconceptions about the impact of counterfeits, Entrupy Inc., the AI-powered authentication solution company, publishes its “State of the Fake” report each year to correct this disinformation in its mission of protecting people and educating consumers. From 2024 to 2025, Vidyuth Srinivasan, chief executive officer of Entrupy, said its responsibility feels magnified, calling out the greater acceptance of fakes becoming mainstream today.

“It has motivated us at Entrupy to redouble our efforts to have a larger voice and impact our stakeholders,” said Srinivasan, who noted that fakes aren’t reducing by overall volume. “This is a serious problem that shows no signs of stopping and needs a more scaled approach if we have any hope of stopping the bleed between the counterfeit market and the legitimate one.”

Entrupy’s AI technology found 91.6 percent of tested items to be authentic in the last year, while 8.4 percent were unidentified. The authors of the report said that these numbers reflect culture, consumer behavior and the evolving resale landscape. Notably, Entrupy works with some of the world’s leading luxury brands to authenticate goods including Prada, Givenchy, Chloe, Dior, Chanel, Celine, Goyard, Valentino, Burberry, Fendi and Gucci, among many others.

While Entrupy’s research found that no country is immune to counterfeiting, the Americas count for 47 percent of all Entrupy submissions for a total of $772 million of authenticated goods in 2024 and $68 million of unidentified goods. Comparatively, Asia-Pacific accounts for 42 percent of submissions for a total of $766 million of authenticated goods in 2024 and $64 million of unidentified goods. Europe and the Middle East account for 11 percent of submissions for a total of $227 million of authenticated goods in 2024 and $22 million of unidentified goods.

The five most faked brands, based on the total number of unidentified items by volume (not percentage), in the last year were Louis Vuitton, Prada, Gucci, Chanel and Saint Laurent. Notably, Entrupy’s data revealed $12,190,340 worth of fake Gucci bags submitted for verification. Chanel accounted for even more with $500,470,067 in counterfeit goods detected.

In the Americas, specifically, the top three fakes were revealed as Louis Vuitton (8.7 percent), Gucci (8.3 percent) and Chanel (6.3 percent).

The top five brands with an elevated risk of fakes, based on the volume of submissions for authentication per brand, are Goyard, Prada, Givenchy, Loewe and Saint Laurent. At 18.4 percent, Goyard maintained its spot as the top faked brand by volume, specifically for its St. Louis Tote. Dior, Hermès and Celine’s unidentified rates dropped compared to last year and are no longer on Entrupy’s top five list.

The five most faked materials were found to be Prada nylon (21.3 percent), Louis Vuitton leather or special collection material (9.9 percent), Louis Vuitton monogram canvas (8.1 percent), Gucci leather or special collection material (7 percent) and Chanel calfskin or lambskin leather (6.7 percent).

Importantly, Entrupy calls out dupe culture as a driving force behind the fraud economy. The hashtag for “dupe” gained 6.3 billion views on TikTok in 2024 with the platform fostering “dupe-hunting” content that “pushes copycat culture into the mainstream and makes imitation feel like innovation.”

“It’s almost an act of rebellion,” Srinivasan said. “Consumers are basically saying ‘These prices don’t work for me, this economy doesn’t work for me, but I want what I want, why should I deprive myself?’”

Moreover, Entrupy’s experts said Walmart’s $30 Hermès Birkin lookalike marked a turning point: the gap between exclusivity and irony is collapsing. “Between the viral chatter about Walmart ‘Birkins’ and people questioning whether even big-name retailers are selling fakes, there’s a real shift happening,” Srinivasan said.

Legally, the company pointed out that the line is blurry between dupes and fakes, making enforcing legal action murky and uneven. Operations behind counterfeiting have become highly coordinated and transactional with scale, coordination and impact growing quickly. Counterfeit bots are also on the rise with 3 percent of counterfeit purchases now enabled by chatbots.

The return fraud economy, which focuses on fraudulent returns and claims, cost U.S. retailers $103 billion in 2024, accounting for more than 15 percent of all returns. These scams can take place in a variety of processes including a classic swap where a real item is purchased then swapped for a fake and returned, a resale platform loophole where a high-quality fake is sent back to a targeted resale platform and return-as-a-service where organized crime rings use fake identities, mule accounts or bulk operations to create a revenue stream through fake returns.

“The rise of fake and dupe culture on social media has made trust harder to earn and easier to lose,” Srinivasan said. “We’re also seeing an explosion of counterfeits in apparel. At this point, protecting your brand is directly linked to protecting your customers, and the only way to do it is via building trust.”