A DVD piracy gang were facing jail today for Britain's biggest film copying scam.

The "sophisticated" family-run business, which made an estimated £7 million, hid behind a "veneer of respectability" as it imported cutting-edge equipment from the Far East to replicate film titles.

Last week, members of a criminal network involved in a multi-million pound industrial replication film piracy in the UK have been found guilty.
The gang provided a 'one stop shop' supply service for other criminal gangs producing and selling counterfeit DVDs in London and the South East, with international links.



Utilising intelligence from a number of sources including FACT (Federation Against Copyright Theft), IFPI (International Federation of Phonographic Industries) and Waltham Forest Trading Standards, the London Metropolitan Police Service's Film Piracy Unit was able to target this highly successful criminal network, starting in June 2006, and arrested ten persons in several locations.

The police provided the most detailed report of the operations to date. The operation, codenamed 'Donets', began in the early part of 2006 following an interception of a parcel by Revenue and Customs officers at Stansted Airport. The parcel contained a Toyota car catalogue which had ten silver metal discs hidden in the pages. The discs turned out to be stampers or original master copy.
As the stamper could only be used to replicate film this indicted the presence in the UK of an industrial replication plant, the first time such a rogue plant had been identified in Western Europe.

Under the cover of conducting legitimate business, Samrana Ltd was the main supplier, sustaining the production of counterfeit film product on a very large scale by criminal networks in London and the South East. The location of the industrial replication machinery was traced to a counterfeiting factory situated in industrial premises in Walthamstow and is now physically located in Vietnam having been exported from the UK via Hong Kong by the executives of Samrana following the seizure of the stampers.



Samrana Ltd was run by Ashgar-Sheikh family members who started the business in 2003. Through its criminal activities that business had grown substantially within a short period of time and the suspects were able to purchase the industrial premises in Harlow near London for a substantial sum in 2005 injecting substantial sums of cash, believed to be the proceeds of this criminality.

Standing trial with the Samrana owners was Xin Li, an illegal entrant to the UK who acted as a quartermaster/organiser for one of the criminal networks who worked closely with Samrana. He stated that he and his wife paid £20,000 each to come illegally into the UK from China. As he was educated and able to speak English he became responsible for orchestrating/organising the workforce and illegal factories operated by a Chinese-based organised crime group in the UK.


Vast sums of money were realised by both Samrana and the group organised by Xin Li, much of which left the UK. An investigation aimed at tracing and confiscating these criminal assets is now continuing. The organized crime groups they were supplying use a workforce of largely illegal Chinese immigrants who had been trafficked into the UK for this purpose. They were housed in 'factories' which ranged from industrial units to terraced houses. These factories were generally short term lets where the illegal immigrants worked and lived around the clock in conditions of 'virtual slavery', says the police.

The factories were capable of producing hundreds of thousands of illegal copies per week of popular movies, with hundreds of different titles being copied. They were also highly active in the illegal distribution of unregulated pornographic material, including some content that would never be licensed in the UK. These pornographic DVDs are sold on the streets alongside the mainstream movie titles.

Those convicted are remanded – some in custody and some on bail – to be sentenced on 28 July.

Story filed 14.07.09