Culture 3 min read By Morgan Griffin
London Man Jailed for Selling £2.7 Million in Counterfeit Vinyl
Rehan Ahmed of west London was sentenced to three and a half years in prison for running the UK's largest vinyl counterfeiting operation, producing fake records by The Beatles, Taylor Swift, Ed Sheeran and others.
A west London man has been sentenced to three and a half years in prison for manufacturing and selling counterfeit vinyl records worth an estimated £2.7 million, in what City of London Police described as a long-running, highly organised and entirely unlicensed operation.
Rehan Ahmed was sentenced at Inner London Crown Court on Friday, September 18. He had pleaded guilty to two charges: breach of artists' copyright, and acquiring and using criminal property. Judge Darren Reed handed down a sentence of two years and eight months on the first count and three and a half years on the more serious second charge. The sentences will run concurrently, meaning the longer term determines how long Ahmed will spend in custody.
Ahmed produced counterfeit vinyl albums under the company names Phoenix of Vinyl and Paragon Music, supplying them to record shops and selling directly to consumers through online platforms including Discogs and eBay. His record factory was raided in February 2024 after the British Phonographic Industry made a test purchase from the premises and discovered evidence of counterfeiting.
Officers uncovered the largest stash of fake vinyl ever found in the UK, with 2,791 records by 108 different artists, including The Beatles, Taylor Swift, Ed Sheeran, Adele, Beyoncé and Rihanna. The operation used four 70-year-old vinyl presses over a period of seven years, according to City of London Police.
Peter Ratcliffe, the BPI's director of content protection, told the BBC that an estimated tens of millions of pounds had been leeched from artists, record labels and retailers. He noted that 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.
Ratcliffe added that the trade does not only affect the legal music economy and everyone who works and invests in it, but also affects citizens who fall victim to other forms of criminality that it funds.
The case arrives as vinyl continues to enjoy a commercial revival. The UK's best-selling vinyl albums and singles of 2026 so far include Harry Styles' recent LP Kiss All The Time. Disco, Occasionally, Olivia Dean's The Art Of Loving and Gorillaz's latest record, The Mountain. In the US, CD revenue surged by nearly 60 per cent in the first half of 2026, according to the Recording Industry Association of America's new mid-year report.
The sentencing underscores the growing pressure on physical music counterfeiting as demand for records climbs. Authorities have framed the operation as one of the most significant intellectual property crimes in British music history, involving a sophisticated manufacturing setup that ran for years before the raid.
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