Police Information

Blow for Illicit Internet Sites.

Wed, September 05, 2001

Source: FACT

Leicester Police have success in operation against Internet sales fraudsters.

 

    On 31 August 2001, Fact's Senior Investigator in the North West of England, Sheryl SPOONER and London Investigator Jim ANGELL, assisted officers from Leicester Police during a search under warrant of a private house in Leicester.  The significance of the subsequent find was a surprise to all involved as another major UK web site was uncovered and closed down.  

This operation follows the recent success against the 'dvdsilvers' site in Kent and is a major strike against a 'main player' in the illicit Internet sales environment. 

Two brothers running a web site design service were arrested and interviewed by police. The story that unfolded was that about 5 months ago, the men identified that there was a lucrative business opportunity in designing and posting a bespoke DVD and VCD sales web site. The counterfeit DVD's were imported from a now notorious Hong Kong/Malaysian company well known to Fact.  

The usual importation method was adopted; purchasing from the pirate Malaysian company via the Internet and then the goods despatched via airfreight using a 'new' apparently safe international courier company.  The worrying thing highlighted by this case is how the price of counterfeit DVD product from the region has dropped to a dramatic £2.50 per disc. The Leicester brothers were reselling the DVD's for £12.50 (within the UK), making them a very healthy profit. 

The individual discs, minus cases, were despatched to the UK along with the necessary artwork marked all region.  All the major new titles were found at the address, many in parcels and padded envelopes that had been addressed from order lists received via the e-mail order system on the web site. Thousands or orders were being and extensive customer lists and orders were found on computer.

Many of the parcels and envelopes were for overseas customers who had placed credit card orders on the site. A number of counterfeit DVD's were about to be sent to consumers in the United States and Australia! 

FACT seized computer equipment and over 350 counterfeit DVD's, the majority being ‘Jurassic Park III’. 

Leicester Police were delighted with the success of the raid and are looking forward to working with Fact again in the future. Fact, meanwhile, are sending the information concerning the SE Asian pirate company to the regional enforcement authorities. 

Fact says: "The real work in this case is about to begin for the investigators as they disseminate schedule and present all the evidence, pull the case together and prepare papers for another major prosecution.  

A result like this against another major UK web site is the sending out the right message, the one that tells the pirate that he cannot hide behind the anonyminity of the Internet. We have become far more proficient in this type of high tech investigation and, through experience we have developed methods to identify the faces behind the sites. We are obviously very concerned with the striking drop in price now available to UK pirates purchasing SE Asian product. 

Taking this type of pro-active action against illicit web site operators gives them nowhere to hide and proves effective. In the larger cases, instead of merely inconveniencing the operator by ‘take down’ procedures we are able to remind the pirates that the full weight of the law will be applied. During raids we are deal with ‘real’ physical evidence and there is no better proof than this.”