Last week, officers from the City of London Police Economic Crime Directorate have seized fake CDs with a street value of over £245,000.

Working with Border Force officers at Manchester Airport, the joint operation supported by anti-piracy investigators from music organisations BPI and IFPI, stopped the largest ever consignment of counterfeit CDs from being smuggled into the UK.

Weighing in at 1.2 tonnes the fake CDs were discovered when Border Force officers at Manchester Airport inspected freight that had arrived on a flight from Hong Kong in early December. The accompanying paperwork described the goods as car MP3s but when officers checked the load they discovered illegally copied CDs by artists ranging from the Rolling Stones to Taylor Swift.

In co-ordinated raids, a further 20,000 CDs were also seized by City of London Police officers at a separate address.