Chinese police and the FBI have collaborated to bust two gangs
in Shanghai and Shenzhen and seized pirated software worth half a
billion dollars, officials said yesterday.
The gangs were pirating Microsoft and Norton software for sale
in the United States, said Gao Feng, deputy director of the
economic crime investigation department of the Ministry of Public
Security (MPS).
Police raided the gangs from July 6 to 16 in an operation
codenamed "Summer Solstice", which is claimed to be the biggest and
most successful joint crackdown on software piracy.
"This unprecedented cooperative effort led to the arrest of 25
individuals, and over 290,000 pieces of counterfeit software were
seized along with assets worth US$7 million," Steven Hendershot,
the FBI's legal attache in Beijing, told a press conference in
Shenzhen.
"The counterfeit software has an estimated retail value of
US$500 million," the Los Angeles Field Office of the FBI said in a
statement.
In the US, FBI agents carried out 24 searches, which yielded
US$2 million in counterfeit software products, in addition to
assets seized worth over US$700,000.
"Law enforcement officials in both countries worked closely by
sharing information to jointly investigate multinational crime
conspiracies by groups who manufacture and distribute counterfeit
products around the world," the statement said.
Gao said Chinese police discovered in 2005 that the Chinese
gangs were colluding with suspects in the United States and
notified the FBI's Beijing office.
The FBI's Los Angeles office found that at least two Chinese men
from Shenzhen were suspected of producing and selling pirated
software in the United States, Gao said.
The FBI statement said it is believed that 70 percent of the
pirated software was sold to the United States, with the rest going
to countries like Canada, Australia and Britain.
"The majority of Chinese-based distributors advertised their
products aggressively and recruited distributors via the Internet,"
it said.
A suspect, Ma Kepei - who was indicted in New York for criminal
copyright and trademark violations relating to the manufacture and
distribution of counterfeit Microsoft products in 2003 - and 10
accomplices, were arrested in Shanghai.
Wang Wenhua, Che Tingfeng and 12 accomplices were arrested in
Shenzhen.
All of them have been charged with violations of China's
criminal copyright law and are in custody, according to MPS.
Official figures showed that Chinese law enforcement authorities
have seized 231 illegal production lines for making counterfeit
disks since 1996 and arrested 510 suspects.
(China Daily July 25, 2007)