Deep cuts: Londoner's fake vinyl empire sheds light on 'industrial scale' fraud

Rehan Ahmed, a 40-year-old from Southall, built a clandestine business under names such as Phoenix of Vinyl and Paragon Music that manufactured counterfeit vinyl records for major artists including Taylor Swift, Coldplay, Kendrick Lamar and Frank Ocean. Police raiding his three‑storey west London factory in February 2024 found about 15,000 records, press moulds, ageing machinery and production equipment - though a cutting lathe believed to be central to making genuine masters may have been removed beforehand. Ahmed admitted two charges, breach of artists’ copyright and acquiring/using criminal property, and was sentenced to concurrent terms with the longer sentence of three and a half years taking effect. The judge described the operation as sophisticated and damaging to the music industry; Ahmed employed a handful of night-shift workers and outsourced only labels and sleeves.

The case sits inside a wider surge of industrial‑scale vinyl fraud that has followed booming demand - UK and US sales climbed sharply into the mid‑2020s - and rising prices for limited editions. The British Phonographic Industry and police taskforces such as Pipcu have executed dozens of warrants (the BPI cites 43 operations) and seized roughly 600,000 counterfeit items with an estimated street value of up to £8m. Investigators under Operation Imatra had to contact 108 labels or rights holders to prove infringement; detectives say Ahmed initially lied about partners before admitting sole responsibility, and detectives attribute his motive squarely to money.