A joint raid by Birmingham Trading Standards, West Midlands Police and the Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT) on an apartment has netted an estimated 40,000 pirate DVDs.

The raid on a residential flat revealed three rooms piled high with DVDs that are not yet in general release. The rooms covered various genres including Bollywood films, pornography, and Hollywood titles including 'Confessions of a Shopaholic', 'The Watchmen', 'He's just not that into you', and 'Slumdog Millionaire'. Inlays from the latest and most popular films were stuck to the wall.

It is thought the apartment was used as a distribution centre. Numerous individuals are believed to have been visiting the premises to collect a supply of DVD's they would sell on the streets. No one was at home at the time of the raid.

Kieron Sharp, Director General of FACT, said: "This is a substantial seizure of counterfeit discs which would have been sold in the Birmingham area, the potential gain on the sale of these discs would be over £100,000."

Public protection committee chair Cllr Neil Eustace said: "This seizure is just the latest in a series of investigations that illustrate the scale of the problem. Pirate DVDs undermine and jeopardise not only future entertainment production but also the livelihood of retailers who are already suffering due to the current economic crisis."

Earlier in the month, a 42-year-old man was caught in Manchester when a gas engineer sent around by the landlord became suspicious of a counterfeiting operation and called the authorities. Raids uncovered a total of 10,000 pirated film DVDs, more than 3,075 music CDs, 4,500 games CDs and 2,250 discs containing hardcore pornography.

The man who has previous convictions for counterfeiting games, was jailed for 16 months after he admitted 14 trademark and copyright offences.

Story filed 16.03.09