It was run by Aamer Ali, 26, of Rhodes Street, Pellon, Halifax, who dealt in the production and sale of hundreds of copied games and DVDs.

He was also linked to stolen televisions and laptops worth thousands of pounds. Today Ali was in jail at the start of a five-year jail term.
Prosecutor Jonathan Carroll told a court yesterday: "Effectively he was a fence for a string of organised thefts."

On his arrest he was found to have more than 1,000 counterfeit DVDs, £14,000 in cash, 128 computer games consoles, 16 stolen TV sets and 348 stolen laptops.

Police later described it as the largest seizure of chipped games consoles in the world.

Ali sold the copied games and DVD's through the weekly car boot sale at Broad Street, Halifax and through the Northern Computer Market at the Trafford Centre in Manchester.

In July 2007, a trading standards officer bought a Harry Potter DVD from the car boot sale for £3 which was found to be a fake and shortly afterwards a Hairspray DVD which was also copied.

An extensive list, of over 100 pages in length, was found of films for sale along with computer games and music.

A total of 907 DVD's were recovered from Ali's car worth more than £3,000 as well as 1,131 Playstation II and Xbox video games.

Ali also advertised a chipping service for games consoles allowing in-built security systems to be by-passed and copied games to be played.

When officers raided his house they found a cellar full of Nintendo Wii consoles, computer games and a catalogue of pictures on computers used for the sleeves for copied films and games along with equipment used to circumvent security systems on games consoles.

Mr Carroll said 342 stolen Tomb Raider games were recovered along with 60 TV sets, worth £29, 382, stolen from lorries in Hampshire.

Televisions stolen in other thefts were also found and evidence of 348 stolen laptops of a batch of 900 that were taken from a lorry in Northamptonshire were traced back to Ali.

Ali's uncle's address, also at Rhodes Street, was being used as a warehouse to store the counterfeit and stolen goods and a building at Taylor House, Dewsbury, was found to be operating as a factory for the copying of bogus material.

Ali has previous cautions on his record for similar offences and also asked for a further offence of handling stolen goods to be taken into consideration, it having been committed on bail earlier this year.

When interviewed, Ali said he had been helping someone else at the car boot sale but otherwise made no comments.

Mohammed Nawaz, for Ali, said: "He clearly recognises the seriousness with which the courts view these offences."

When passing sentence, the Recorder of Leeds, Judge Peter Collier QC said: "Your history shows me your attitude to the criminal law has been breathtakingly arrogant as if the law did not apply to you."

Ali's brother, Yasar Ali, 23, of Rhodes Street, was conditionally discharged for 12 months and his cousin, Murtaz Ali, 31, also of Rhodes Street, was given a six and a half month prison sentence, suspended for two years, with 100 hours unpaid work, for their parts in the counterfeit operation. Murtaz was linked to counterfeit clothing.

A fourth associate, Naveed Zaman, 24, of Richmond Road, Halifax, was given a 12 month prsion sentence suspended for two years with 200 hours unpaid work.