Pair sold ‘unsafe’ fake phone goods on eBay from Goodmayes

It follows a raid on the shop by trading standards officers who seized £90,000 of counterfeit electrical goods.

Redbridge Council said the items seized put consumers “at risk of electrocution” and “posed a fire risk”.

Amjad Iqbal, 48, from Pittman Gardens in Ilford, was sentenced at Snaresbrook Crown Court on July 21 to 22 months imprisonment, suspended for two years, after previously admitting breaching the 1994 Trade Marks Act.

He had counterfeit goods in his possession which he sold with fake Samsung and Apple trademarks. 

Dilshad Ullah, a 51-year-old from Hodge Street, Manchester, was sentenced to seven months in jail, suspended for 14 months, after pleading guilty to possessing counterfeit goods.

“Our trading standards team helped build a solid case against these cowboy traders,” Redbridge Council leader Jas Athwal said.

“These people expose consumers to risks such as fire and electrocution with counterfeit products that are untested and dangerous.

“The court sentences should be a reminder to those who think they can gain at the expense of people’s safety.”

An investigation was launched following a complaint in 2019 about an eBay seller supplying counterfeit phone and tablet chargers and batteries.

Test purchases traced the goods to Iqbal’s shop in Goodmayes Road.

The shop was raided and 95 bags of counterfeit goods were seized. Safety tests later revealed they had “high-risk electrical safety” failures.

Redbridge Council said Ullah was in charge of the shop, where boxes of unbranded chargers were found with fake labels ready to be attached to them.

Iqbal has to do 200 hours of unpaid community work and be subject to an electronically-tagged monitored curfew for four months on top of his suspended sentence and also ordered to pay £20,000 court costs.

Ullah has to do 90 hours of unpaid work and cough up £10,800 costs.

National Trading Standards regional investigators who headed the operation against the pair warn that poor quality fake electrical goods pose serious dangers. The goods they seized were found to have electrical safety failures.