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Gang members responsible for huge counterfeit DVD operation jailed

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Five gang members who ran the UK's biggest counterfeit DVD factory have been sentenced to jail for infringing copyright and conspiring to distribute illegally copied DVDs.

As part of a police investigation into the DVD manufacturing operation, police raided Wembley-based commercial printer BDP (UK) in April 2009. BDP (UK) has since gone into administration.

Company director Ajay Singh Ahulawalia, 50, has been sentenced to 16 months in jail and been disqualified as company director for four years.

He pleaded guilty to conspiracy to manufacture subject to trademark and concealing criminal property on 21 March 2011.

Gang member Mirza Amjad Beig, 45, has been jailed for 30 months, while Amin Zulfiqar, 28, who is still at large, was sentenced to 18 months in prison.

Prikshat Sharma, 27, and Rahul Divan, 35, were both sentenced to 15 months in jail.

City of London Police estimate at the height of its operation, the gang was capable of generating £95,000 a day by reproducing up to 250,000 counterfeit DVDs a week that were then sold on the streets of London.

Gang members had developed a sophisticated distribution operation, couriering the burned DVDs across London to 15 'shops' in residential properties in Deptford, Lewisham and Camberley.

Large numbers of sellers would then visit the addresses and select the titles to sell on the streets in London and the South East.

In 2009, a joint operation between City of London Police, Metropolitan Police and the Federation Against Copyright Theft, closed down the gang's illegal business.

Police raided two sites in Wembley and Southall, seizing millions of pounds' worth of equipment that was used as evidence in the case.

They confiscated a Heidelberg printing press, 440 DVD burners and 60,000 copied and packaged DVDs ready for distribution.

The counterfeit titles of blockbuster movies included Slumdog Millionaire, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Watchmen, Gran Torino and Australia.

Police also discovered 250,000 blank discs and one million printed covers.

City of London Police Det chief inspector Dave Evans said: "These men ran an organised business, with a specialist factory capable of producing hundreds of thousands of fake DVDs.

"City of London Police has put them out of business with these convictions."