Croatian cops crack down on pirate ring

THE CROATIAN POLICE held a press conference, reporting that a special team of investigators pulled the largest coup of pirated software in the force's history.

Sixty inspectors worked on operation "Sale" which ended in the arrest of a large number of suspects, and tons of pirated software and hardware. Police barged into 16 different business offices and nine private apartments, cracking the pirate ring that allegedly had a monthly turnover of well over a million Euro.

The total seizure is 49,000 of pirate CDs and DVDs, 166 PlayStation 2 consoles, 15 Xbox and Xbox 360 consoles, 17 computers including industry-grade towers with stacked CD/DVD burners, 21 cellphone and several undisclosed technical components. Croatian police estimate the value of confiscated software alone was around four million kunas (around €550,000).

Software that was burned on DVDs consisted almost exclusively of computer games, while CDs containing recent hit albums of foreign crooners and croonerettes.

Press representatives stated that all the confiscated goods are being examined and that the total value of confiscated goods including hardware will be published next week.
The identities of 21 alleged pirates were not disclosed at press time. µ