Inside £2 million Birmingham fake clothing scam – how couple duped brands out of millions from home
A Birmingham couple turned their home into a fake clothing factory churning out branded t-shirts, selling them online and posting them to unsuspecting customers
Shelves stacked with fake branded t-shirts ready to be posted out to online customers
This is inside the operation where a Birmingham couple used a printer and stacks of plain t-shirts to dupe brands out of millions, leading to one of them ending up behind bars.
Shahzad Ahmed and his wife Afshan carried out a huge counterfeit clothing operation from behind the doors of their Acocks Green home.
Located in a small cul-de-sac – Bricksmith Close, the duo transformed their home into a big fake good printing factory.
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They ran it through a company, Smass Ltd, of Bizspace Business Park, Unit 23, Sigma Way, Kings Rd, Tyseley, with Shahzad Ahmed listed as the director.
Birmingham Trading Standards officers raided the home and seized goods.
They interviewed them under caution and had initially issued a warning to the couple to stop – but they carried on – operating the scam ‘business’ for more than five years..
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Piles of different coloured t-shirts were stacked on shelves, ready to printed with a vast selection of logos, trademarks and designs, which were then posted out to their customers.
They would be sold via online marketplaces and sent to customers.
Birmingham City Council sent BirminghamLive the images, which revealed the extent of the fake goods ‘cottage industry’, which is believed to have cost brands a cool £2 million in ‘estimated financial harm to legitimate brands’.
Images show black and blue metal shelving units stacked with plain t-shirts and sweaters, in a range of colours and large stack of white ones, ready to be imprinted with a vast array of well-known images.
The house in Acocks Green contained shelves stacked high with plain t-shirts and tops ready to be printed
The city council listed Gucci, Marvel, Warner Brothers and Paw Patrol among the brands affected.
But the photos they sent, the exhibits for the Birmingham Trading Standards case, revealed many, many more.
Tool brand, DeWalt, the Football Association’s England logo, a Bob Marley image. Honda, the Olympics and Adidas’s oldskool logo.
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NASA, Warner Bros’ Batman and Game of Thrones, MGM’s Vikings’ TV show logo, comic book creator, Stan Lee Man of Many Faces image and BMW.
Marvel’s The Punisher, Universal’s Jurassic Park, Team GB, Audi, Mercedes-Benz and more.
A host of copyrighted images and logos, copied, printed and sold – over five years.
Images revealed a t-shirt printer, a grey Royal Mail bag to get orders out in bulk, and shelves stacked high with both plain and printed t-shirts.
The t-shirt printing press used to dupe brands out of millions
According to Companies House, Smass Ltd’s busines sis listed as ‘retail sale via mail order houses or via internet’, plus ‘Other information technology service activities and ‘management consultancy activities other than financial management’.
Smass Ltd’s micro accounts for the year ending 31 May 2024 showed current assets of £17,257 and liabilities of £20,344, indicating the company was in a deficit of £4,024.
The micro accounts for the year ending 31 May 2025 showed net current assets of £11,660 and current liabilities of £21,514, indicating the business was in deficit to the tune of £7,384.
The firm was said to have three employees. But nothing of the scale of the fake clothing scam was revealed.
A Royal Mail grey sack was found at the Acocks Green home used to take the fake, printed clothing to be sent out to customers (Image: Birmingham City Council )
Shahzad Ahmed, aged 41 and Afshan Shahzad admitted offering to sell goods bearing ‘a sign identical to a trademark and possession of goods bearing a sign identical to a trademark, offences under the Trade Mark Act.
Ahmed also admitted money laundering – ‘transferring and/or converting criminal property, namely the proceeds of the sale of counterfeit goods’ – an offence under the Proceeds of Crime Act.
Ahmed was jailed for six-and-a-half years at Birmingham Crown Court on Tuesday (April 7), while his wife, Shahzad, was handed a two-year suspended jail sentence and ordered to complete 200 hours of unpaid work and 10 days of rehabilitation.
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Sajeela Naseer, director of Regulation and Enforcement at Birmingham City Council, said: “This case represented a serious and deliberate attempt to profit from criminal activity at the expense of consumers, legitimate businesses, and well‑known brands.
“Despite repeated warnings and clear opportunities to cease their activities, Mr Ahmed and Ms Shahzad continued to operate illegally for personal gain.
“The sentencing reflects the gravity of their actions, and we hope it sends a strong message that counterfeiting will not be tolerated in Birmingham.”
Birmingham Trading Standards added it ‘remains committed to working with brand owners, enforcement partners, and online platforms to identify and disrupt similar illegal trading operations’.
