James Delahunty
1 Nov 2004 9:09
Two men, Dino Simm and Sidney Austin have been jailed for four years for selling pirated movies in the UK. The ring was smashed by police following an 18 month investigation. They sold over 400,000 copies of movies including Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter movies, accumulating around £3 million in just two years. Their actions have cost the movie industry millions in lost revenue. The pirate DVD's were being shipped to the UK from crime gangs in Malaysia. Apparently, these discs were disguised as blank CD's to be smuggled into the UK and were known to damage the laser in DVD players after a few plays. The DVD's were sold for about £10 and usually at the time of selling; the movies were still in cinema or not even in cinemas yet, like Spiderman 2.
When police raided the house the pirates used as their headquarters they found a room piled floor to ceiling with 26,000 DVD's. The pair used their illegal profits for first class travel, casinos and fast cars. When people were buying DVD's from these people, they didn't know that their money was actually funding crime gangs in Kuala Lumpur. They were Britain’s biggest pirate DVD suppliers. This activity is becoming more popular in every country now. In Ireland, people actually go door to door selling pirate DVD's. Usually the sellers are under 18 being sent around by adults with DVD's. After I got my hand on a couple of the DVD's, I found that they came from the Internet, were very badly re-encoded and burned on Princo DVDR's which are very cheap because they lack quality.
Source:
ThisIsLondon.co.uk