THE $500 billion global black market in fake branded goods is growing at an alarming pace as counterfeiters muscle in on products as diverse as designer handbags, prescription drugs and car parts, according to a powerful American business lobby.

The US Chamber of Commerce, representing three million American businesses, says that the global market in counterfeit goods could be worth up to $2 trillion (£1,146 billion) within 20 years.

Pirates have become so adept at copying top branded goods and getting them into the shops that millions of consumers have been duped, the chamber says.

“There was a time when buying counterfeit goods meant getting Nike sneakers with the brand spelt with a Q or something, but not today,” David Hirschmann, the chamber’s vice-president, said. “I have seen executives of major branded goods companies unable to tell between their products and those seized from counterfeiters.”

Counterfeiters with operations to rival manufacturing giants such as Gillette or Sony employ tens of thousands of people, mainly in China and Brazil. They send representatives to trade shows to collect samples of the latest goods and produce replicas, sometimes before the real thing hits the shops.

Mr Hirschmann said: “James Kilts, the chief executive of Gillette, once said to me that if you are not constantly worried about counterfeiters, you probably don’t have a very good product, that’s how bad it is.”

Oral B toothbrushes, Gillette razor blades and Duracell batteries are among the top-selling knock-off products today, he said. When most of us think of counterfeit goods we think of handbags, watches or pirated software. However, it is one thing for Gucci to lose out on handbag sales or for Microsoft to worry about better encryption; it is quite another when life-saving drugs are replaced with dangerous compounds or inert powder inside counterfeit capsules and packets.

Mr Hirschmann recalled the FBI intercepting a suspect shipment of drugs, but releasing it after comparing the pills with those already on wholesalers’ shelves, not realising that those on the shelves were fake, too.

Counterfeit drugs for deadly illnesses such as malaria are often found in the Third World, usually after they have been administered. “Buying counterfeit goods is almost funny until you realise that the trade costs lives,” Mr Hirschmann said.

The chamber has seen terrifying examples, such as brakepads made in China from compressed grass that disintegrates into dust and exploding cellphone batteries that put a 13-year-old in hospital with serious burns. “What about counterfeit aeroplane parts — that’s pretty scary, but we have seen them,” he said.

The trade in counterfeits is now so lucrative that some of South America’s biggest drug cartels are turning from cocaine and to fake branded products.After all, there is an all-out multi-agency war on drugs that includes armies and border control agencies. Fake goods get nothing like as much attention.

The World Customs Organisation believes that the global trade in fake goods last year was $512 billion, or 5 to 7 per cent of all trade.

Mr Hirschmann said: “We have to work with governments of countries like China, and with wholesalers and retailers and with customs agencies. This threat against legitimate business and against consumers has to be stopped.”