Chinese-based ring counterfeited over £1 billion of software
A huge piracy ring involving Windows Vista has been smashed in China. The counterfeiting organization has been tracked by the FBI in cahoots with China’s Public Security Bureau, says the BBC .
Members of the syndicate pirated many different Microsoft apps including Windows Vista and Windows XP as well as the last two iterations of Microsoft Office. Microsoft says that information used to help track the pirates down was obtained from its Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) software. Indeed it seems 1,000 fake copies made by the ring were tracked this way. The software had, according to Microsoft, spread so far as 27 countries.
The pirated software seized was worth as much as £250 million, though the ring is thought to be responsible for counterfeiting as much as £1 billion worth of software at factories in the Guangdong area.
A total of 25 people were arrested in the raids.
September 25th, 2007 at 6:18 pm
Windows Genuine Advantage Spies on Chinese
A huge piracy ring involving Windows Vista has been seized (290,000 CDs) in China announced J. Stephen Tidwell, Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI in Los Angeles, and Steven Hendershot, the FBI’s Legal Attache in Beijing, China. The Chinese counterfeiting syndicate has been tracked by the FBI in working with China’s Public Security Bureau who arrested 25 people by raiding the software production plants in China’s Guangdong province.
The operation, codenamed “Summer Solstice,” began in 2005. Operation Summer Solstice encompasses multiple investigations currently being conducted by the FBI in Los Angeles and the MPS, Economic Crime Investigation Department (ECID), in which criminal organizations responsible for manufacturing and distributing counterfeit software have been identified in both Shanghai (MA Ke Pei organization) and Shenzhen (WANG Wenhua and CHE Tingfeng).
Microsoft says that information used to help track the pirates down was obtained from its Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) software.
WGA forces users of some versions of Windows to validate their copy of the operating system with Microsoft when updating their software. Microsoft said information gathered by WGA from more than 1,000 fake copies produced by the counterfeiters and sold around the world helped law enforcement agencies home in on the pirates. Fake software produced by the group was found in 27 countries.