Nintendo Counterfeiter Charged With Seven Counts of Fraud

After making over $962,000 on counterfeit Nintendo games, a UK man now faces jail time.

They say that crime doesn’t pay, but really, that’s only true if you get caught. For Justin Success Brooks of the United Kingdom, his crime of selling counterfeit Nintendo games made him nearly a million dollars. Unfortunately for Brooks, his middle name proved inaccurate, and he’s now facing multiple counts of fraud and jail time.

Brooks netted £600,000, which comes out to over $962,000, from selling thousands of counterfeit Wii, DS, and DSi cartridges between 2009 and 2011. He was busted after an investigation by Nintendo and the UK Interactive Entertainment Association in which investigators purchased counterfeit games from suspicious websites, which eventually led them to Brooks. He’s been charged with seven counts of fraud, according to the Croydon Guardian: “two counts of fraudulent trading, two counts of supplying an article to use in fraud, two counts of unauthorized possession of goods bearing a trademark, and one count of unauthorized use of a trademark.”

Brooks has plead guilty to all of the counts, and he’s now awaiting his sentencing while out on bail. It’s unclear just how long he could be in jail after his sentencing, but the judge who granted him bail told him, “This is clearly a serious matter and this is not giving any promise of anything other than custody if that is what the sentencing judge decides.” Brooks’ fate will be discovered when his sentencing takes place on November 9.

Source: Croydon Guardian via Joystiq