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Technology Stocks : Hide & Seek - The Copy Protection Solution -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Chloe R who wrote (573)	8/12/1998 12:22:00 PM
From: IPOJunkie	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 690

I'm going international - Five Men Arrested in œ1M Counterfeit Software & Equipment Raid - - FAST indentifies Increasing use of the Internet by Software Criminals -- Slough, June 30 1998 - FAST, the Federation Against Software Theft, joined Wolverhampton Trading Standards and West Midlands Police in a series of early morning raids on Sunday 28 June 1998. The raids resulted in five arrests, and counterfeit software and equipment with an estimated retail value of over œ1million being seized. Activity on the Internet had led FAST to participate in a three month investigation with the Police and Trading Standards, which led them to focus on the distribution and production centres in the Wolverhampton area. An Internet site, two CD factories and market outlets were included in the raids. Nine premises were searched. More than six hundred CD ROMs, including business, music and leisure programmes, all believed to be counterfeit were recovered together with CD writers, computers, and large quantities of blank CDs. It is belived to be the largest operation of its kind in the area. Inquiries are still continuing and follow-up raids have not been ruled out. Robin Lawrence, head of FAST's digital crime unit, comments:"The scale of criminal activity uncovered in this operation was no surprise to any of us. It demonstrates again how the Internet can add value to criminal activities. Anyone who deals in this type of activity faces unlimited fines and custodial penalties of up to ten years." The five men arrested have been given police bail while further enquiries by Trading Standards and Police take place. FAST will now carry out extensive forensic work on the retrieved software and equipment before the case comes to court. FAST recovered œ78M worth of infringing software during 1997 and continues to work closely with Trading Standards to crack down on software piracy.