Counterfeit DVDs: Bowie Man Pleads Guilty To Selling $316K Worth

BOWIE, MD —A Bowie man pleaded guilty last Friday to selling thousands of counterfeit DVDs, a report said. The U.S. Department of Justice identified the accused man as 45-year-old Olayinka Wahab, also known as Sulaimon Olayinka Wahab.

Authorities allege that Wahab sold 18,306 illegal DVDs between May 2009 and May 2018. More than 10,000 of those sales came between August 2016 and April 2018, they added. The DVDs would have been worth $315,761.44 if they were sold in stores, the DOJ noted.

Police explained that they heard word of an online merchant selling discounted films when the Motion Picture Association approached them in 2017. Undercover officers reported that they bought several DVDs from the merchant. They alleged that the movie group concluded that these DVDs were counterfeits.

Among others, the write-up indicated that the undercover purchases included:

• “Beauty and the Beast”
• “The Walking Dead”
• “Grimm”
• “The Little Mermaid”
• “Peter Pan”
• “The Lion King”
• “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs”
• “The Fate of the Furious”
• “Finding Dory”

A press release informed that officers searched Wahab's home, finding 589 counterfeit DVDs and other technology used to commit the crime. Wahab told authorities that he bought the DVDs from China because the prices are far cheaper there, the release continued.

The report shared that Wahab must pay full restitution for the filmmakers' losses. The DOJ clarified that Wahab's plea agreement also requires him to forfeit:

• The materials seized from his home
• $20,243.25 in cash from multiple bank accounts
• 0.65595896 Bitcoins sized from a Coinbase account
• $230.40 from a PayPal account

Wahab faces up to five years in federal prison on his copyright infringement charges, officials specified. A judge will sentence him on May 18, the DOJ said.

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