Original URL: https://www.theregister.com/2008/12/10/west_midlands_pirate_ring/

Raids net police £1m in pirate game and movie discs

'You want DVD?'

By James Sherwood

Posted in Legal, 10th December 2008 12:34 GMT

UK police have raided a factory in the West Midlands where pirate films, games and music – with an estimated street value of £1m – were produced.

Police found 30,000 illegally copied discs at the factory, which is in the Brierley Hill area. These ranged from copies of teen flick High School Musical 3 to Will Smith’s moody superhero film Hancock.

Around 9000 of the copied discs found were games, although police haven’t named any specific titles that were found in the haul.

You can’t produce that many copied discs without a mighty supply of hardware to back you up. So it’s no surprise to learn that the cops also found seven PCs attached to 35 DVD re-writers, three printers and 19 hard drives.

Presumably the factory workers were avid gamers too, because 15 Xbox 360s and two Wii consoles were also discovered. Police even found “circumvention devices” for mod-chipping games consoles.

Simultaneous raids were carried out at several other West Midlands locations, including a market stall and an undisclosed personal residence. Police found a combined total of between 4000 and 5000 games and “other digital media” at the sites.

Several unnamed people have since been arrested, but released on bail.