A COUNTERFEIT DVD seller who hid his stash of bogus blockbusters under a box of fruit and vegetables has been jailed.
Chinese national Da Ming Yu, 41, of no fixed address, was imprisoned for six weeks on Tuesday last week at Hendon Magistrates’ Court.
Yu was offering for sale DVDs of films, some of which were still showing at local cinemas such as The Amazing Spider-Man and The Dark Knight Rises, on the street in Burnt Oak Broadway, Edgware.
The day before the court appearance, officers from Brent and Harrow Trading Standards accompanied police officers to the road and spotted the defendant.
Yu was not carrying any movie discs but a closed-circuit television operator at Harrow Council alerted police that he had earlier been spotted concealing a quantity of DVDs underneath boxes of fruit and vegetables.
Sixty-one counterfeit movies were then recovered and Yu was arrested and charged.
He told interviewing officers he was selling them to raise sufficient funds to afford a flight home to China.
Yu had been in the UK illegally for several years and was prohibited from working by the Home Office.
He had been warned about similar offences in 2006, was handed a conditional discharge for similar offences the same year and had served 28 days in prison in 2007 for the same crimes.
The defendant was jailed and ordered to pay prosecution costs £50 to Brent and Harrow Trading Standards after admitting four counts of breaching the Trade Marks Act.
Bill Bilon, head of Brent and Harrow Trading Standards, said: “I am very pleased with the result obtained from this operation and the custodial sentence imposed.
“Thankfully these offences are becoming unusual due to the levels of enforcement carried out by my officers and the Metropolitan Police over the previous five years or so.
“I strongly urge those who buy these counterfeit DVDs to think twice because they are funding organised criminal activity and damaging local legitimate businesses in Harrow and surrounding boroughs.”
