Southall trader jailed for piracy

A Southall Broadway trader has been sentenced to 15 months in jail after he was caught with 20,000 pirate DVDs and CDs during a joint investigation by Ealing Council and the Metropolitan Police. Valued at more than 200,000, the haul was seized during a raid on a retail unit in Punjabi Bazaar [45 The Broadway, Southall] and an associated flat by officers from the Councils Trading Standards team and the Southall Broadway Safer Neighbourhood Police Team on 5th May last year. In Isleworth Crown Court on Friday [20th April], Raghubir Singh Chopra, a 27-year-old man from Hayes, pleaded guilty to the possession for sale of illegal counterfeit DVDs and associated offences under the Trade Marks Act 1994. He was sentenced to 15 months imprisonment. Officers raided the unit and flat following intelligence and information received from a variety of sources including local residents. Nearly all the DVDs seized were Bollywood films, some of which had not yet been released in U.K. cinemas.