Fake DVDs worth £200k found in Digbeth flat
Mar 12 2009 by Emma McKinney, Birmingham Mail
COUNTERFEIT DVDs worth more than £200,000 were seized in a swoop on a Birmingham flat.
They included pirate copies of the multi award-winning Slumdog Millionaire and latest Hollywood blockbusters Watchmen and Confessions of a Shopaholic, which are not yet in the shops. Illegally copied Bollywood movies and hardcore pornographic DVDs were also seized by investigators at the apartment in Digbeth.
They were all due to be sold on the black market across the West Midlands.
Today the criminals behind the operation were being hunted.
Officers discovered more than 40,000 illegal movies piled hire in three rooms in the flat in Bradford Steet, which had been transformed into a factory churning out fake DVDs.
The swoop, involving officers from Birmingham Trading Standards, West Midlands Police and the Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT) follows a large-scale investigation into counterfeit films.
Officers said the apartment had been transformed into a slick production and distribution centre, with row after row of movies and inlays from the latest and most popular films stuck to the walls.
Kieron Sharp, director general of FACT, which protect the interests of the film and broadcasting industry against copyright and trademark infringements, said he was delighted the DVDs had been taken off the black market.
