A Henan Province man has been sentenced to three years and three months in prison for selling knockoff watches on an overseas online marketplace, a district court said Monday.

The defendant, surnamed Huang, plead guilty to selling counterfeit products, according to a press release from Minhang District People's Court.

In October 2012, Huang and his wife, surnamed Shi, who was also charged in the case, opened separate accounts on the US-based online marketplace, iOffer, where they sold knockoff watches bearing the luxury brand names of Rolex, Louis Vuitton, Breitling, Gucci and Omega, the court said.

iOffer has nearly 100,000 vendors, who need nothing more than a valid credit card to begin selling stuff on the website.

Within half a year, Huang and Shi had won a degree of popularity among consumers from the US and the UK, so they hired English-speaking employees to deal with their overseas customers, the court said. By March 2013, they had sold 787 knockoff watches with a total sales volume of $41,060.

Police arrested the couple the following month. Authorities confiscated 114 counterfeit brand watches at their home.

In court, the prosecution submitted iOffer sales records, delivery receipts, appraisal letters from Louis Vuitton and Gucci Group, and testimony from one of the couple's employees.

Along with the prison sentence, Huang was fined 150,000 yuan ($24,089). The court sentenced Shi to one year of probation and fined her 70,000 yuan.

Judge Tian Lifeng said that counterfeit product sellers have been turning to online marketplaces based overseas to avoid tightening regulations over domestic online trading platforms.

"Domestic online trading platforms have adopted a series of measures to combat the sale of knockoff products, such as actively checking out their vendors and setting minimum prices for certain products," Tian said in the press release. "However, foreign digital trading platforms don't check such sales behavior. Instead, they severely punish businesses that have been found selling knockoffs."

The case of Huang and his wife is the second such case that the court has handled since 2013, said Wu Yixuan, a press officer with Minhang District People's Court.