Mastermind behind UK's biggest-ever vinyl counterfeit operation sentenced to prison

A man from South London has been jailed for running the UK's "biggest-ever" vinyl counterfeit operation.

Rehan Ahmed, from Southall, West London, was sentenced to three years and six months in prison on Friday (September 18) for masterminding what investigators have called a "long‑running, highly organised and entirely unlicensed manufacturing operation" of fake vinyl releases.

According to BBC News, City of London Police were first alerted to Ahmed's operation after representatives from the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) made a test purchase from his Acton-based pressing plant, Phoenix of Vinyl, in February 2024.

Upon raiding the plant, officers uncovered the largest stash of counterfeit vinyl ever discovered in the UK, amounting to 2,791 records containing music from 108 different artists, including Taylor Swift, Bad Bunny, The Beatles, Drake, and Ed Sheeran.

Prosecutors claim Ahmed had made around £2.6 million over the course of the seven-year operation, during which he created records using four 70-year-old vinyl presses, 3,000 metal stampers, and thousands of sleeves and centre labels. The weight of evidence confiscated from the property was around 18 tonnes. 

"This conviction is hugely significant, and we thank our partners in this investigation, PIPCU and our label members, for their valued efforts over many months to bring about this welcome outcome," says BPI Director of Content Protection Peter Ratcliffe.

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"Sadly, it won’t return the tens of millions of pounds that we estimate have been leeched from artists, the record labels that support them, and the retail community that sells their music, but at least this major criminal operation has now been closed down and it sends a clear signal to other counterfeiters who are exploiting music that we are coming after them," he continues.

"With music on physical formats enjoying a resurgence, the market in counterfeit records has unfortunately also been growing as criminals cash in at the expense of creators and fans," he says.

"This doesn’t just impact the legal music economy and everyone that works and invests in it - it also affects every one of us as citizens who fall victim to other forms of criminality that it funds. It is vital that we put a stop to it and, working with our members, PIPCU, Trading Standards and other authorities, we are absolutely focused on doing just that."