Police have raided a DVD burning factory in east London,
the biggest ever discovered in the UK.
Five people have been arrested, following an operation by the
Met’s film piracy unit, Trading Standards, and the Federation
Against Copyright Theft (FACT).
At the Leyton, east London factory, officers found 50 DVD burner
units, 30,000 blank DVDs and a large quantity of printed cover
inlays.
The DVD burners were each capable of making nine copies at once,
taking approximately 10 minutes. The type of DVD burners used in
the piracy factory stood alone and did not require PCs to
operate.
Police said the factory theoretically had the capacity to
produce 450 DVDs every ten minutes or 2,700 DVDs per hour.
This is the first operation undertaken by the Met's Film Piracy
Unit, which was launched this February.
Detective superintendent Trevor Shepherd, of the economic and
specialist crime command, said, “The film piracy unit is the first
of its kind in the world and this significant result demonstrates
the value of police working in partnership with industry to combat
criminal networks.”
