Italian tax police said on Friday they have seized counterfeit Chinese copies of vintage game consoles and video games from the 1980s and 1990s worth almost 50 million euros ($55.5 million).
New versions of video games and gaming consoles popular decades ago have recently been re-released in a phenomenon known as "retrogaming".
The Guardia di Finanza tax and customs police in the northwestern city of Turin said in a statement that they had seized around 12,000 gaming consoles in several provinces across Italy starting from late 2023. The consoles were "all from China", the police statement said.
The consoles contained more than 47 million pirate copies of old video games, lacked proper EU-mandated health and safety labels and were equipped with non-certified batteries and electrical circuits, police said.
They were sold in shopping malls, online marketplaces and Italian company websites.