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Spanish cops bust piracy ring
Spanish police raided 23 locations throughout Spain this week and arrested 75 people in connection with a media piracy syndicate described by music industry group IFPI as the country's biggest ever piracy operation.
Police arrested 69 people--all Chinese nationals--on October 26 and six more today for their involvement in the illegal production, storage, and retail distribution of music and film discs, the IFPI said.
The raids "smashed a syndicate believed to be responsible for releasing over one million pirate music and film discs every month into the Spanish market," IFPI reported.
"We are very encouraged by this operation, and hope it will have a positive impact on Spanish music," IFPI chairman and CEO John Kennedy said in a statement. "Spain was once a thriving legitimate music market, but is now known for the most serious piracy problems in Europe."
Most of the raids were in Madrid and its outlying suburbs, with some occurring in the Mediterranean port of Alicante.
Police seized more than 60,000 CD-Rs, 50,000 DVD-Rs, 130,000 inlay cards, and 200 CD drives. The product included recordings by Spanish and well-known international artists.
Spain has one of the worst piracy problems in Europe with 24 percent of the music market flooded with illegally copied material. IFPI estimated that piracy costs the music industry in Spain $77 million annually.
Four of those arrested were sent to prison while the rest were expected to be deported because they had no legal permits to stay in Spain.
Spanish interior minister José Antonio Alonso appeared at the press conference announcing the arrests, calling it the most important operation against industrial piracy undertaken by the police to date. He said that today a kilo of illegally copied discs is five times more profitable for pirates than a kilo of hashish.
He also said that in the past 18 months, pirates had flooded the Spanish market with 50 million illegal CDs or DVDs.
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