Vinyl forger made £2.7 million profit selling fake Taylor Swift and Ed Sheeran records

A vinyl forger who generated £2.7 million over seven years by pressing fake records by artists including the Beatles, Taylor Swift and Ed Sheeran has been jailed.

Rehan Ahmed, 40, of Cranleigh Gardens, Southall, west London, was handed a three-and-a-half-year prison sentence at Inner London Crown Court on Friday for what police described as "a long‑running, highly organised and entirely unlicensed manufacturing operation".

His record factory was targeted in a raid in February 2024 after representatives from the British Phonographic Industry made a test purchase from his Phoenix of Vinyl warehouse in Acton and uncovered the counterfeit sales, City of London Police said.

Officers uncovered the largest seizure of counterfeit vinyl records ever recorded by UK police, discovering 2,791 items spanning 108 different musicians.

Replications of music by performers including Adele, Ariana Grande, Bad Bunny, Drake, Beyonce and Rihanna were produced using four 70-year-old vinyl presses.

Authorities also located 3,000 metal stampers alongside thousands of sleeves and centre labels, confiscating an overall total of 18 tonnes of evidence.

Detective Constable Daryl Fryatt, from the police intellectual property crime unit (PIPCU) at the City of London Police, said: "Rehan Ahmed exploited artists and the wider music industry, taking advantage of the resurgence in vinyl records for his own gain.

"We will continue to pursue criminals who target the creative industries and bring them to justice when they do. This case should send a clear message to anyone selling counterfeit vinyl, it is illegal and we will take action."

Peter Ratcliffe, BPI director of content protection, said: "This conviction is hugely significant and we thank our partners in this investigation, PIPCU and our label members for their valued efforts over many months to bring about this welcome outcome.

"Sadly, it won’t return the tens of millions of pounds that we estimate have been leeched from artists, the record labels that support them and the retail community that sells their music, but at least this major criminal operation has now been closed down and it sends a clear signal to other counterfeiters who are exploiting music that we are coming after them.

"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.

"It is vital that we put a stop to it and working with our members, PIPCU, trading standards and other authorities we are absolutely focused on doing just that."