Police and trading standards officers in London made five arrests on Wednesday after raiding the largest pirate DVD manufacturing facility ever uncovered in the UK. The premises in Leyton, east London, contained over 500 individual DVD burners capable of producing over 60,000 pirate DVDs per day.

Officers from the Metropolitan Police and Waltham Forest Trading Standards led the raid, which followed an investigation into the supply of counterfeit DVDs across London and the South East involving officers from the Met’s new Film Piracy Unit (FPU), a joint initiative with FACT (the Federation Against Copyright Theft).

DVDs representing 300 different titles (including Ice Age 2) were seized during the raid, which resulted in the arrest of four men and one woman, who are being questioned by police. Officers from the FPU are investigating the finances of the illegal counterfeiting operation, which is suspected to be the work of Chinese organised crime in the UK.

FACT's website has pictures of the factory here. ®

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