Pirate's Gold Veils Hidden Booty
A raid at a house in Burton on Trent, Staffordshire has resulted in the arrest of a man who has allegedly been making money from creating vast quantities of illegally copied games and pornography.
The raid, which was executed at 7am on the morning of Friday 22nd September at the premises of the 36-year old man by Staffordshire Trading Standards, an ELSPA investigator and Staffordshire police, resulted in the seizure of a large, state-of-the-art PC connected up to four burning towers (each with seven trays) and up to four Xbox 360 consoles.
The man’s heavily pregnant wife was present in an upstairs bedroom, which had been converted into a production factory for duplicating illegally copied software and he was actually caught copying Xbox 360 games as the raid was being carried out.
Of the discs confiscated during the raid, the majority – over 1,000 – were games discs. Also discovered were five removable hard drives, allegedly containing his master files for all products. A large amount of pornography was also found on an undisclosed number of the discs.
Financial documents were recovered and a POCA (Proceeds Of Crime Act) investigation has already started to estimate the criminal gain from his illegal activities. The man has been bailed to appear before Staffordshire police at a later date.
Michael Rawlinson, managing director of ELSPA commented: “This raid came as a result of a thorough and professional investigation by Staffordshire Trading Standards department and ELSPA investigators and proves that increasing numbers of pirates are paying the price for pursuing illegal business activities.”
