For the first time we can see
that at least in Pretoria, if you are caught breaking copyright laws, you can
get deported. Three Pakistani nationals were fined a total of R112 000 in the
Kempton Park magistrate's court and will be deported to Pakistan. They plead and
were found guilty of abusing the Counterfeit Goods Act, as they had been
caught importing over 8000 DVD's.
DVDs, including new movie titles such as Harry Potter and The Prisoner of Azkaban, Shrek 2 and Spider-man 2, had a street value of several million rand. Fred Potgieter, the managing director of the Southern African Federation Against Copyright Theft (Safact), confirmed at the weekend that Farham Radiya was fined R60 000 for importing 4 000 DVDs and Akhtar Ali, who arrived at Johannesburg International Airport on the same flight from Dubai last Tuesday, was fined R12 000 for importing 1 630 counterfeit DVDs and 1 000 pornographic DVDs. Mahommed Asif Abbasi, who arrived in South Africa earlier on the same day, was fined R40 000 for importing 2 500 counterfeit DVDs with a retail value of about R600 000. Potgieter said all three had pleaded guilty. |
The arrests were the result of efforts made by the
SA Revenue Services' customs passenger administration team and the
anti-smuggling counterfeit team at Johannesburg International Airport. What is
of interest also is these three especially ruffled some feathers by selling "multi-purpose DVD's". Each DVD
had three or four films on each one so 2500 DVD's would actually be 10,000
titles.
Source: Business Report
