SIX Chinese nationals who worked for a syndicate making counterfeit porn DVDs were yesterday jailed for up to 19 months.

One was an illegal immigrant and the others had overstayed their visas. They were arrested after police, acting on information gathered, raided a house in Sembawang on Nov 3.

The five men and one woman – all aged between 20 and 34 – yesterday pleaded guilty to immigration and copyright offences.

Four of the men, who had overstayed their visas for more than 90 days, were also ordered to be caned three times each for this.

This is believed to be the largest group of copyright offenders to be dealt with in one hearing.

A district court heard that police seized 1,586 DVDs containing 5,275 obscene films in the raid.

Managing the illegal operation was Li Jianhua, 34. The court heard that his brother, Li Jianbing, 32, had asked him to come over from China to help him with his counterfeit DVD business. The woman in the group was their sister Li Jianying, 29.

Li Jianhua arrived on Aug 18, 2010, and was granted a two-week visa. When it expired, he continued living in an apartment in Lagoon View, Marine Parade, where the DVDs were counterfeited.

He started off by delivering DVDs to street peddlers but was managing the operation by June last year when the six moved to a house in Jalan Rukam, Sembawang, where they lived together.

Each DVD was sold for 70 cents and Li Jianbing would usually get $4,000 a month as his cut from the proceeds. The remainder of the profits would pay the salaries of the accomplices and the $3,200 monthly rent for the house.

Every month, Li Jianhua received $1,500 plus 10 per cent of the profits, a figure that was not specified in court. As he was considered more culpable, he received the most severe sentence – a year and seven months in jail, as well as three strokes of the cane for overstaying his visa.

Li Jianbing has also been charged, but his case has not been heard yet.

Li Jianying was jailed for a year and two months for helping to make the fake DVDs. She was also jailed for a month and fined $2,000 for entering Singapore illegally. Investigations revealed that she sneaked in on a boat from Malaysia in late 2009.

The youngest in the group was Ke Yunqing, 20, who was jailed for two weeks for overstaying for 60 days and another year for dealing in the DVDs.

Deputy Public Prosecutor Paul Cheong Yuen asked District Judge See Kee Oon to impose a deterrent sentence as the offences were serious and the illegal profits were very high.

Defence counsel Johnny Seah said his clients were only pawns within the China-based syndicate, and deserved leniency.

They could have been jailed for up to five years for infringing the Copyright Act.