Making a mark

Croydon Council recently brought one of the first and largest local authority confiscation proceedings, following the successful prosecution of an offender for various offences of trade marks and copyright infringements. Investigation into the offender’s financial affairs uncovered more than £820,000 of benefit gained through criminal conduct with approximately £350,000 having been laundered to Hong Kong. Mark Anthony Rayner explains what was involved.

As part of the working together scheme, Croydon Council trading standards officers and officers from the European Software Publishers Association (“ELSPA”) attended a computer software fair at Ashburton School, Shirley Road, Croydon.

During the visit, it was observed that a stall was displaying games consoles and disks. Suspicion arose when it was observed that a number of people attended the stall and handed their Microsoft Xbox 360 games consoles and Sony Playstation 2 consoles to a man and a lady behind the stall. Money then exchanged hands and it was then observed that the man proceeded to dismantle one of the Sony Playstation 2 consoles and solder a circuit board into the unit. One of the Microsoft Xbox 360 was seen to be connected to a tower PC situated under the stall/table.

Consoles were also seen to be connected to a lap top computer behind the stall and were returned to the owners after a short while.

A Trading Standards officer then saw there were approximately 100 games listed for the Xbox, with similar lists also available for the Wii, PSP and PS2. The officer then asked for ‘Fifa 2007’ and handed her £6.00 in cash in exchange for a disk that had ‘Fifa 07’ handwritten on the disk face. The officer then asked for contact details and was handed a business card with the male offender’s details on it.

The Fifa 07 disk was examined and confirmed to be a counterfeit copy. When run on a Microsoft Xbox 360, the protected trade marks appeared on the screen.

Trading standards officers and ELSPA officers then returned to the computer fair at Ashburton School, Shirley Road, Addiscombe. Both offenders were arrested and all infringing then recorded, bagged, sealed and taken away from the computer fair by Trading Standards staff. The offenders’ home was searched and they were found to be in possession of more than 1000 counterfeit games, a large number of games consoles, MicroSD cards and memory sticks, ‘chipping’ manuals and a quantity of ‘tools’ and mobile phones.

In interview, it was confirmed that the stall can take in the region of £500 a day, with ‘chipped’ or ‘flashed’ machines commanding an extra £70 above their recommended retail price and counterfeit games selling for around £6. Approximately £1m had passed through the male offender’s bank accounts in the last three years.

All of the items seized were subsequently examined by experts. A majority of the game consoles were found to have been ‘chipped or flashed’ to enable the security devices to be circumvented and all ELSPA games found on rewriteable disks were confirmed as counterfeit.

A number of circuit boards and programmers that had been found in a toolbox at the offenders’ stall at the computer fair had been designed, produced or adapted to enable the circumvention of the effective technological measures and access control mechanisms of various games consoles, and thereby enabled the playing of counterfeit games.

The Outcome

Prosecution proceeded against the male offender as it was clear from the evidence that he was the force behind this operation. He pleaded guilty to 18 Counts of various trade mark infringements under the Trade Marks Act 1994; the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988; and for money laundering under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002.

However, before sentencing and confiscation proceedings, the defendant absconded and it is believed that he has since left the jurisdiction using false travel documents as his passports were seized.

In the defendant’s absence, the court could only award a confiscation order in the total sum of £169,942.50 which represents the benefit from his particular criminal activities. He was sentenced to 12 months’ imprisonment for each offence plus 18 months’ imprisonment in default of payment of the confiscation order. The court awarded full legal costs to Croydon Council.

There is currently an outstanding Bench Warrant for the defendant’s arrest and the presiding judge has reserved the case to herself so that in the event the defendant ever returns to this jurisdiction, he is to appear before the same presiding judge.

Mark Anthony Rayner leads the prosecution team at DMH Stallard, which advised Croydon Council. He can be contacted on 01273 744276 or via This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..