BRITAIN is becoming the world’s black market film capital with three million pirate DVDs seized in 2004 — a rise of more than 3,000 per cent in three years.

But the seizures represent just 5 per cent of the market in pirated films which will earn an estimated £450 million for organised criminals as diverse as the IRA, Chinese “snakeheads” and the Russian mafia.

By 2007, the illegal trade is predicted to be worth £1 billion. Gangs deliberately target Britain because it is the largest English language market outside the United States. Within three days of a film being illegally copied in an American cinema, tens of thousands of DVDs will be on sale in Britain, long before its offical UK release.

Investigators claim to have found links between DVD pirates and the drugs trade, human trafficking, terrorism, child pornography and fraud. There is growing concern in government that jobs are under threat in legitimate industries. Next month will see the publication of the first National Enforcement Report on intellectual property crime, and the Patent Office and National Criminal Intelligence Service are developing a new strategy to combat the trade.

One of the biggest battles facing law enforcement agencies is the perception that the sellers of counterfeit DVDs are “Del Boy” characters thumbing their nose at the movie industry. “This is not a cheeky cottage industry, it is a major international criminal operation,” said Raymond Leinster, director-general of the Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT). “DVD piracy is now epidemic across the UK — DVDs are sold through ice-cream vans, barber’ s shops and under the counter in pubs and clubs. On some housing estates you can call a minicab and get cigarettes, a bottle of vodka and Terminator 3 delivered — all of it counterfeit.”

Britain’s 7,000 markets are awash with pirated films. In Edinburgh, the quantities of pirate films on sale at Ingliston Market have been blamed for a steep decline in audience figures at the city’s cinemas.

In Brick Lane, East London, yesterday The Times found DVDs of Polar Express, The Incredibles and Bridget Jones: the Edge of Reason — all recent cinema releases.

Other street sellers included Eastern European men selling extreme pornography of Russian origin.About half of pirated products seized this year were detected by Customs officers at ports of entry, often hidden inside machine parts and children’s toys. In Northern Ireland the illegal trade has long been controlled by Republican and Loyalist terrorists.

John Woodward, of the UK Film Council, said: “Consumers buying from these silver-screen pirates are funding criminals and putting people out of work.”

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