Sydney pastor who ran criminal syndicate faces jail time

It sounds like the ultimate rags-to-riches tale: a man raised in an Indian orphanage earns his MBA and nabs a high-level job with a Saudi Arabian prince, before building a multimillion-dollar business in Australia.

But Mosaic Defredes' business was mostly illegal and the 41-year-old is facing the prospect of a jail sentence in the NSW District Court.

Defredes, then a pastor and counsellor at Blacktown City Church, operated an international syndicate out of western Sydney that imported, advertised, packaged and sold pirated DVDs between February 2012 and April 2013.

He worked with Allison Daniel, a member of his' "Jesus Freaks" youth group who lived with his family and called him "Dad", the court has heard.

The DVDs were imported by a Chinese supplier named Gavin and Defredes used more than 50 false names and addresses to receive them with help of a DHL courier, according to an agreed statement of facts.

Daniel would also steal DVDs from department stores to send to Gavin, who would have them copied in China before sending the counterfeits back for sale.

They sold the discs on Ebay using two accounts - giftorium and mad.dvd.dealz - making a profit of about $10 to $25 on each pirated DVD, court documents said.

But Defredes had issues with the quality, telling Gavin in one of several complaining emails: "I have more than 150 Downton Abbey thrown like crap in my warehouse because all have bloody problem with them. Frequent complaints about quality."

When police raided Defredes' western Sydney home, storage unit and warehouse in 2013, they found more than 1.3 million discs in what is believed to be the largest known seizure of copyright infringing DVDs in Australia.

The Australian Screen Association said the haul, which included some legitimate DVDs, would have sold for about $21 million.

Both Defredes and Daniel have pleaded guilty to possessing infringing copy of a work with intent to sell and infringing copyright commercially, prejudicing the owner.

Defredes also pleaded guilty to making a false/misleading statement about an Australian travel document while Daniel pleaded guilty to attempting to obtain an Australian travel document dishonestly.

At a sentencing hearing on Thursday, Defredes said he was "deeply apologetic" for what he had done.

He told the court he moved to Australia with his family and received a protection visa in 2007 after fleeing Saudi Arabia where he worked as a business adviser to a prince.

"I refused to convert to Islam so they arrested me and tortured me," said Defredes, who is originally from India.

He has been in custody since April 2016 and said his wife had moved back to India, and he had developed drug and gambling problems following his arrest.

"One wrong step just kept leading to one step after steps after steps," he said.

Daniel also apologised to the court, saying she had made a mistake and "I'll never do anything like this again."