KUALA LUMPUR, May 29 — The Ministry of Domestic Trade, Cooperatives and Consumerism raided a building in Jalan Klang Lama here on Monday after receiving a tip-off that the owner was getting ready for World Cup 2014 by stocking up about 50,000 football jerseys of countries competing in the tournament.

The 9.30am raid was carried out by a team led by Trade Descriptions Unit head Aswadi Jaafar, assisted by the deputy director of the ministry’s city office, Rosli Ahmad, and eight personnel.

Describing it as the biggest haul of imitation jerseys this year, Aswadi said the team had been observing the building for about a month before the raid.

“The jerseys, worth RM500,000, are believed to be for distribution nationwide with the World Cup fever about to start,” he said.

Bearing popular brands such as Adidas, Nike and Puma, the jerseys included those worn by teams competing in the Malaysia Super League.

“Checks revealed they were brought in from a neighbouring country,” he said.

Aswadi said a suspect, aged 39, detained during the raid was being investigated for supplying counterfeit merchandise.

The penalty was aw maximum fine of RM10,000 a jersey, upon conviction.

On Tuesday, as part of Ops Arak Tiruan, the ministry raided two terraced houses in Cheras, where they recovered 701 bottles of fake liquor worth RM73,000.

The afternoon raid in Taman Segar Perdana was carried out by a 15-man ministry team headed by operations officer Ahmad Puat Abd Hamid.

“The neighbours said they seldom saw the tenants, apart from their occasional loading and unloading of boxes into either a van or a lorry, once or twice every few days,” Ahmad Puat said.

“Unknown to them, the houses were used to store fake liquor bearing popular brands meant for distribution to locations in the Klang Valley.”

“We found numerous empty liquor bottles, which led us to believe that those involved had been adulterating the contents and selling the liquor as genuine at a slightly lower market price.

Ahmad Puat said the ministry was trying to locate the owners of the houses.