WASHINGTON, April 22: Police in the United States and 10 other countries seized some 200 computers in a global crackdown on pirated films, software, music and games, US authorities said Thursday.
Attorney General John Ashcroft called the effort "the most far-reaching and aggressive enforcement action ever undertaken against organizations involved in illegal intellectual property piracy over the Internet."
The Federal Bureau of Investigation and agents from other countries carried out 120 searches in 27 US states and 10 countries starting Wednesday, Mr Ashcroft said. The raids were carried out in Belgium, Britain, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Israel, the Netherlands, Northern Ireland, Singapore and Sweden, the Justice Department said.
The aim was to crack down on high-level members of international piracy organizations, known as the "warez" community. Justice Department spokesman Bryan Sierra said there had been no arrests so far in the United States, "but we do anticipate arrests." He could not comment on any arrests outside the US.
Officials said the groups are the source of most of the pirated works traded or distributed online through peer-to-peer file-sharing networks and other Internet sources. "Intellectual property theft is a global problem that hurts economies around the world," Mr Ashcroft said. -AFP
