A man has been jailed for selling £2.7million worth of fake vinyl by the likes of The Beatles, Taylor Swift and Ed Sheeran.
Rehan Ahmed from west London, was sentenced at Inner London Crown Court last Friday (September 18) in what City of London Police called “a long‑running, highly organised and entirely unlicensed manufacturing operation”.
He pleaded guilty to two charges of breach of artists’ copyright, and acquiring and using criminal property. On the first count, Judge Darren Reed sentenced him to two years and eight months in prison, while the more serious second charge led to a custodial penalty of three and a half years.
The sentences will be served concurrently, meaning that the second will dictate the time Ahmed spends in prison, according to The Guardian.
Ahmed produced counterfeit vinyl albums under the company names Phoenix of Vinyl and Paragon Music, which he supplied to record shops or sold directly to consumers through online platforms such as Discogs and eBay.
His record factory was raided in February 2024 after the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) made a test purchase from the premises and discovered evidence of counterfeiting, according to BBC News.
City of London Police said officers uncovered the largest stash of fake vinyl ever found in the UK, with 2,791 records by 108 different artists including Adele, Beyoncé and Rihanna using four 70-year-old vinyl presses over a period of seven years.
Peter Ratcliffe, BPI director of content protection, told BBC News that an estimated “tens of millions of pounds” had been “leeched” from artists, record labels and retailers.
He added: “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.
“This doesn’t just impact the legal music economy and everyone that works and invests in it – it also affects every one of us as citizens who fall victim to other forms of criminality that it funds.”
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‘ latest record, ‘The Mountain’.
Elsewhere, CD revenue in the US 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.
