The Rio de Janeiro Civil Police seized about 200,000 counterfeit 2026 World Cup Panini stickers as well as hundreds of fake Brazil national team Nike jerseys on Thursday night in Nova Iguaçu, Brazil. At a press conference on Friday, law enforcement officials said that the investigation into who produced the items is ongoing and everything confiscated would be destroyed after being analyzed.While counterfeit collectibles are nothing new, collectors may be more susceptible to buying fake 2026 World Cup stickers because of the sharp rise in the number required to complete the Panini album for the expanded tournament. As the World Cup moves from 32 teams to 48, a total of 980 stickers are needed to fill the 2026 album versus 670 for the 2022 album. So what should sticker collectors look for to ensure they don’t fall for fakes?The Rio Civil Police shared their findings in the video embedded below. Here are some fake sticker tells, but keep in mind that fakes can come in many different forms, with some more convincing than others:
Fake stickers can have a thicker paper stock than the real ones
They can have a different, coarser texture than the real stickers
The image quality may not be as sharp
