Police forces from five countries have jointly smashed an online piracy ring with the arrest of more than 100 people yesterday.

Law enforcement agencies in the UK, US, Australia, Poland and Slovakia targeted individuals believed to have been involved in selling unauthorised copies of software, games, music and movies online.

According to an Agence France Presse report, police claimed the gang was comprised of hackers who broke into university and college computer systems in a number of countries and used these resources to serve and sell the pirated content.

In Poland, five programmers, believed to be the ring's leaders, were arrested. They face up to eight years in prison, if convicted.

Earlier this month, British police and anti-fraud investigators swooped on 57 people (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/08/04/operation_zouk_piracy_crackdown/) in a bid to tackle sellers of pirate DVDs. ®

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