Mosaic Defredes and Allison Daniel pleaded guilty today on charges relating to the possession and sale of thousands of counterfeit DVDs.
The two appeared in the Downing Centre Local Court.
Defredes and Daniel were arrested in April 2013, following the seizure of a total of approximately 1.2 million DVDs.
Detectives from Quakers Hill Police conducted the operation with the support of investigators from the Australian Screen Association.
Defredes and Daniel had also sold over 65,000 DVDs totalling over $1.6 million in sales on eBay.
A factory unit in Kings Park was used for assembling and packaging the DVDs.
At today’s court appearance both Defredes and Daniel pleaded guilty to two counts contrary to 132AJ and 132AC of the Copyright Act, according to a statement released by the Australian Screen Association.
The charges related to jointly participating in a criminal enterprise of possessing thousands of DVDs comprising 251 individual cinematograph films and television program titles which were then sold via the online website eBay.
The matter will be mentioned in Sydney District Court on April 22 when a date for the sentencing hearing will be set later this year.
Penalties for such crimes under the Commonwealth Copyright Act carry a maximum of five years imprisonment and/or a fine of $60,500 per offence.
The matter was prosecuted by the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions.
Assistant MD of the ASA, Greg Fraser said, “This was a massive scale operation conducted without any regard to the many legitimate businesses in the area who do their best to provide a quality service, give people an opportunity to earn a living, pay their taxes and play by the rules".
"It also took advantage of the goodwill of eBay customers who rightly expect that the items they purchase are legitimate and of genuine quality".
"There are no winners in operations such as these. Consumers are being ripped off by not receiving genuine products, small retailers suffer and the copyright holders and thousands of people that have worked hard to make a film are seeing their proceeds go to criminals.”
As Defredes was leaving court, NSW Police arrested him and he was taken to City Central Police Station where he was subsequently charged with one count relating to the 192J Crimes Act (NSW), relating to identification information, and another count relating to the 29(1) Passport Act.
Defredes will appear in Central Local Court later today for a bail hearing.