£15,000 of pirate Bollywood DVDs seized in Southall

Copies of a Bollywood film featuring a Southall wheeler-dealer character who sells pirate DVDs were among illegal copies seized in the town this week.

A joint investigation by Ealing Council Trading Standards officers and the Police led to a haul of films and music CDs with a street value of around £15,000.

The batch of around 3,000 DVDs and music CDs included illegal copies of the latest Bollywood film Jhoom Barabar Jhoom, which features Abhishek Bachchan as a ‘loveable rogue’ from Southall. 

Copies of the hit movies Life in a Metro, starring Shilpa Shetty, and Cheeni Kum, starring Amitabh Bachchan were also discovered during the investigation, held on Saturday (30 June) in a basement of the Himalaya Palace shopping mall in The Broadway, Southall.

Doug Love, Ealing Council’s Head of Trading Standards, said: “It is ironic that copies of Jhoom Barabar Jhoom were among the copies we discovered.

“This latest raid shows we still have a battle on our hands to stop the sale of pirated, low quality DVDs.” 

Sgt Shahid Malik, of the Police’s Southall Broadway Safer Neighbourhood Team, said: “This was excellent partnership work between us and the Council and we will continue to do everything we can to catch those who sell counterfeit DVDs.”

One man has been arrested in connection with the raid.