Jail sentences for East Midlands' pirate brothers

Two brothers from Scunthorpe, in the East Midlands region of the UK, have been handed down prison sentences after being convicted of running the largest piracy operation ever seen in the region.

Forhad and Ajad Miah were sentenced to 15 and 9 months imprisonment apiece for running a copying operation out of their shop, AJ Computers, as well as selling pirate goods over the Internet.

Over 13,000 pirate items, including videotapes, CDs and DVDs, were seized by officials from North Lincolnshire Trading Standards and the local police in a raid on the shop and on the Miah's home in 2003.

"We are pleased with the cessation of this major counterfeiting operation, which not only caused loss to the games, music and film industries, but also had a detrimental effect on local retailers," commented Michael Rawlinson, deputy director general of ELSPA.

"ELSPA would like to thank everyone involved for their hard work and we hope the sentences handed out will act as a strong deterrent to other would-be pirates," he concluded.