Here's an example of a fake electrolytic capacitor bought on the gray market: http://www.discovercircuits.com/dc-mag/Issue_4/Photos/FakeCa...

Wow, reminds me of that fake "500GB external hard drive" which was just a 128MB thumb drive in a 2.5" case.

http://blog.gsmarena.com/how-do-you-spot-fake-chinese-usb-ha...

I bought a few usb flash things on ebay a while back. One had a weird USB connector (hard to plug anywhere). I asked for money back, surprisingly it holds data.

Another was a microsd, I spent 2 hours running through some linux memory testing program (u3 . .. or something similar in name) to be sure it had the right amount and wasn't failing.

I assume there's another capacitor inside the blue one too. Matryoshka capacitors!

100pF ceramic disc ;)

And inside that an 0402 MLCC (they do actually do that)

If they buy their inner capacitors from a similarly dubious supplier, this might even be possible. Counterfeiters all the way down.

I honestly have a hard time believing this--rubycon is a good capacitor brand; why would you put a 'decent' capacitor in a fake product instead of using some cheap chinese crap?

It might be Ruhycon.

Or maybe recycled, note the short legs. Part of this e-waste you are now obliged to dispose of "responsibly" lands on dump sites in Asia or Africa. Some of that ends up harvested for parts.

They were so far out of spec that we had to rework all of the boards with genuine caps.