Ukrainian pirates arrested

Date: March 04, 2004
Source: Computer Crime Research Center
By: Dmitri Kramarenko

Officers of Poltava regional Department of the Security Service of Ukraine and State Department of Intellectual Property seized the most large-scale consignment of counterfeit audio, video tapes and compact disks for last years. Their value is about 85 thousand UAH (about $17000). But the main thing here is that law enforcement managed to wind up an underground workshop that manufactured counterfeit (unlicensed) production. It occupied a basement near Central marketplace and supplied pirated production to 10 sales outlets in the marketplace, some specialized departments in the Central shopping centre, self-service store in Poltava and also some shops in the region. A private entrepreneur organized this workshop, installed there about 30 audio, 15 video tape recorders and one DVD player working practically without breaks. All equipment, except DVD, was depreciated and it had affect on production quality, though it had a pretty appearance due to sound wrapping and it even had holograms. However different tapes and even different movies were sold with one id.

Counterfeiters obviously replaced information marked on the original holograms with another, intellectual property chief inspector Yuri Kuchinskiy told. Law enforcement also is to establish where original holograms and printed wrappings came from. However it is possible to say they succeeded in liquidating at least one unit of the criminal interregional organization.

The quality of counterfeit production was doubtful, fakes could be told from originals by such features:

1. Text on the cover provided with tapes was only in English.
2. There was no manufacturer marked on the cover.
3. Appearance of tapes and compact disks was unattractive.

Prices for these goods were official (equal to prices for original license copies) so that fakes would not arouse any suspicion. Compact disks reportedly delivered from Kiev were sold triple the price.

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2005-09-17 16:45:26 - Your blog is realy very interesting. Sonta

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