Latest News / Archive - January 2008

11th January 2008

COUNTERFEIT DVD 'FACTORY' RAIDED
DVD'S WITH STREET VALUE OF £195,000 SEIZED

The discovery of a DVD factory in Eltham yesterday, Tuesday 8 January, will make a significant dent in the market for counterfeit DVDs across London, says Greenwich Police.

According to FACT (Federation Against Copyright Theft) it is the largest DVD factory discovered in the past 18 months.

Greenwich officers were called to 18 Ryelands Crescent, Eltham, SE12, at 8.00 am today by officers from another borough who had called there on arrest enquiries.

At the scene, they found around 65,000 counterfeit DVDs ready to be dispatched and sold on the streets; 21 copying ‘towers’ containing 210 DVD multi -burner trays and thousands of DVD sleeves and film labels in two bedrooms at the house.

In the garage, they found around 30,000 blank DVDs stored in boxes.
The equipment found in Ryelands Crescent was able to produce 800 DVDs per hour. The product cost of each DVD is about 20p but on the streets, they can sell for around £3.00 each.

Seven people, five and two women, all in their 20s, were arrested on suspicion of theft of copyrights and taken to south London police stations.

Detective Superintendent Janice McClean said:"The discovery of this DVD factory will cause serious disruption to the supply of counterfeit DVDs across London. The production of illegal DVDs is often funded by international criminal networks and can lead to further crimes such as drugs supply and prostitution being introduced to the area.

"We are extremely pleased to have taken out this major supplier and the investigation will now continue to ascertain further details about who was behind it. I would urge anybody who notices anything suspicious in their street to contact their dedicated Safer Neighbourhoods Teams who will investigate."

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23rd January 2008
FACT SPONSORS NEW CRIMESTOPPERS WEBSITE

To mark its twentieth anniversary, the UK charity, Crimestoppers, has given its
www.crimestoppers-uk.org website a complete makeover. From today, the new site which uses the latest in online technology, goes live.

Crimestoppers is also delighted to announce that FACT (The Federation Against Copyright Theft) has come on board as site sponsor for three months. Since last October, FACT has been working in partnership with Crimestoppers to encourage reporting of criminal activity in audio-visual piracy and to draw attention to the serious impact counterfeiting can have on wider communities.

The new website has been designed by Precedent Communications and features a number of enhanced features, such as case studies, a crime prevention area, polls and information in different languages.

One of the special features is a purpose-built appeals management system designed specifically for police forces to enter appeals into a central database. Users can monitor the appeals through sophisticated search methods and then send valuable and potentially life-saving information to Crimestoppers quickly and anonymously.

The search functionality for the popular ‘Most Wanted’ section (www.crimestoppers-uk.org/mostwanted/) - where visitors can help solve crimes - has been vastly improved where you can now search by crime type, region, postcode and specific appeal. RSS feeds are also an option if you want to be kept up to date with new appeals in a specific region.

There is an increased emphasis on local news which can now be accessed from any page on the site. A survey carried out by Crimestoppers, showed that more than 70% of visitors to its site were looking for local information.

Crimestoppers’ CEO, Michael Laurie CBE, said: “For twenty years Crimestoppers has relied on the public to use the 0800 555 111 telephone number to report crime anonymously and we hope that through this new website even more people will be aware of our charity and how they can help to remove criminals from our streets.

“I am delighted to welcome FACT on board as our first-ever site sponsor. We share a common interest in tracking down serious criminal activity in piracy and copyright theft.”

Kieron Sharp, FACT Director General, added: “FACT is delighted to continue to support the work of Crimestoppers which has been a valuable partner for us already. Audio-visual piracy is criminal activity and such activity brings harm to local communities by attracting other crimes and much of the trade in counterfeit DVDs is controlled by organised criminal networks.

Our enforcement activity is combined with the work done by the Industry Trust for IP Awareness which seeks to change attitudes regarding the purchase of knock-off DVDs.”

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24th January 2008

Half million pound pirate DVD factory raided in New Cross, SE London.

Following an intelligence led operation, a large pirate DVD factory was raided yesterday in a 3 bedroom semi-detached house in Joseph Hardcastle Close, SE14 by New Cross Safer Neighbourhoods Team and FACT.

250 burners were found, capable of producing over 170,000 knock-off DVDs a week with a street value of over half a million pounds per week.

Also in the premises were a large amount of blank DVDs and printed inlay cards.

The DVDs were believed to be destined to be sold on the streets of London by illegal Chinese immigrants working for Chinese organised criminal networks.

Titles found on the raid include Sweeney Todd, There Will Be Blood and Cloverfield ( which are not yet released in UK cinemas).

5 people were present on the premises – no arrests were made but investigations are continuing.

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