Norfolk businessman, Allen Watts was sentenced to over three years in prison for orchestrating Europe’s largest pirate video operation. He flooded the market with over 500,000 counterfeit copies of popular films like Saving Private Ryan, The Matrix, and Gladiator, defrauding the film industry of millions of pounds. The scheme came to light as blockbuster sales dropped and unusually low prices emerged. FACT’s investigation led to a police raid that revealed a massive duplicating facility and blank cassettes, and major retailers, including WH Smith and HMV, had stocked films that Watts had sold to an unsuspecting legitimate distribution company.
