Netflix shines spotlight on counterfeits with Bad Influencer

Counterfeiting isn't often the focus of major TV drama, but Netflix has brought it to the fore with a new South African show called Bad Influencer.

The South African crime series, created by Kudi Maradzika, follows a single mother who teams up with an influencer to sell counterfeit luxury brand bags to get out of debt, and sees here life spiral out of control.

Following in the footsteps of other shows that portray ordinary people getting out of their depth by getting involved in crime, such as Ozark, Breaking Bad, and Good Girls, with enough humour to offset the gritty side of the story.

It also provides an interesting representation of a modus operandi that may be deployed in the copying of high-value products and selling them on, and exposes to a mainstream audience the links between counterfeiting and other facets of organised crime like loan sharking, prostitution and violence.

You can watch the series on Netflix here.

While it is getting a little long in the tooth now (time for an update, perhaps), you can also see our top 10 listing of moves featuring counterfeiting here.