Consumers can already get Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone on VCD but these VCDs are pirated, police said at a press conference yesterday.
Officers of Ta-an Police Precinct and the National Police Administration's Telecom Department arrested accused software pirates Lin Hsiu-hsia (林秀霞), Cheng Hsiao-ching (鄭曉菁) and Yu Tien-wang (游添旺) and discovered more than 100,000 illegal CDs and VCDs at the suspects' factory in Panchiao City, Taipei County. However, two key suspects, Cheng Shih-tsung (鄭世琮) and Lee An-bang (李安邦), were still on the loose as of press time.
PHOTO: CHIU CHUN-FU, TAIPEI TIMES
Police pointed to a strong family connection within the piracy ring. Suspects Cheng Shih-tsung and Cheng Hsiao-ching are brother and sister, and Lin is their mother. Police say the family hired Yu to produce the illegal CDs and VCDs.
The factory is located in an apartment building which is also the residence of the family, a police source said.
Police found a variety of pirated products at the apartment, such as pornographic VCDs, popular movies and debut songs. Some of the movies were officially released just last weekend.
Aside from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, movies such as American Pie 2, Don't Say a Word and Training Day were all available. As well, 900 pirated CDs of pop singer A-mei's latest album Truth were discovered by police.
Police said that Cheng Shih-tsung and Lee, heads of the group, were in charge of doing business with buyers nation wide, while Cheng's sister and mother were managing the factory. This group now controls half of the market for pirated CDs and VCDs in the greater Taipei metropolitan area. Net profit for the group was at least NT$10 million a month, police said.
"These people are very slick," said Chang Liang-hsin (張良信), chief of the Ta-an police precinct. "They thought nobody would find them if they established their factory inside a residential building.
"Also, with their illegal VCDs for example, once there is a newly released movie in theaters, they will spend a couple of hundred dollars to buy a ticket, enter the theater with a hidden camera, record everything during the movie, come back to the factory and then begin to pirate it. Their high-tech machine can produce a VCD at the speed of one piece every five seconds."
Chang said police will keep on searching for Lee and Cheng Shih-tsung and will continue to investigate whether the group has a second factory and fellow pirates.
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