Man jailed after large haul of counterfeit goods seized from unit in West Midlands car park
A man has been jailed for more than four years after a haul of counterfeit goods and trademarked brand labels were seized at a unit in the West Midlands.
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Mohammed Shafiq, formerly of Poplar Avenue, in Balsall Heath, Birmingham, was sentenced following "one of the largest ever" investigations in the region to be undertaken by National Trading Standards Regional Investigations Team.
Trading Standards officers visited a unit built into a car park at Elite House on Warwick Street in the Digbeth area of Birmingham in January 2019 and seized a large amount of counterfeit goods.
The items seized included clothing, perfumes, cosmetics, accessories and electrical items, as well as assorted trademarked labels and machinery to apply them onto ‘plain’ items.
Shafiq was found to be one of the individuals who had rented the unit and had provided a copy of his passport as part of the rental process.
In December 2020, the 46-year-old was caught driving a van load of counterfeit goods from Coventry to Wellesbourne Market in Warwickshire.
The van, which was being driven on cloned plates, was found to contain items similar to those that had been recovered from the storage facility in Digbeth.
Shafiq was sentenced to four and a half years in prison at Birmingham Crown Court on January 2 after previously pleading guilty to a charge of conspiracy to counterfeit.
Lord Michael Bichard, Chair, National Trading Standards, said: “Counterfeiting misleads consumers into parting with hard earned money for fake products, but the practice also puts victims at risk of even greater harm than financial loss.
"Aside from being poor quality, fake electrical goods can be a fire hazard, while fake cosmetics, perfumes and beauty products can contain harmful ingredients as criminals don’t care about safety standards.
"Even fake designer clothes and accessories cause huge harm as the trade props up organised crime .We’re proud to have supported this investigation – one of the largest ever undertaken in the West Midlands - and we urge people to be vigilant and report any examples of sales of counterfeit goods by calling the Citizens Advice Consumer Helpline on 0808 223 1133.”
