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Italian finance police and a technology watchdog group have broken up an online piracy ring that allegedly traded millions of euros worth of bootlegged software, music and films, the industry group said on Tuesday.
Guardia di Finanza and the Business Software Alliance (BSA) have teamed up on a year-long investigation, resulting in the arrest of one group member and the seizure of more than 100,000 counterfeited software and entertainment products.
The BSA announced the news on Tuesday after receiving clearance from Italian authorities to discuss the ongoing investigation, which could be one of the largest of its kind in Europe. Separately, the Guardia di Finanza confirmed the matter on Tuesday.
The rampant distribution of pirated materials via the Internet has hit the software, music and movie industry hard in the past three years.
Research commissioned by the BSA showed software piracy in Europe rose 3 percent in 2001 on the previous year to 40 percent of all software in Western Europe, equating to revenue losses of around 2.9 billion euros for the European software industry.
The Italian group is suspected of selling more than 60 million euros ($60 million) worth of pirated software and other pirated goods through a host of Web sites, the BSA said, making it one of the largest software piracy rings in Europe.
One person, arrested in Milan earlier this year, has been formally charged and another 10 are under investigation after police simultaneously raided locations in nine Italian cities including Milan, Bologna, Naples and Trieste.
The last of the raids occurred in September, officials said.
The BSA nor police disclosed the suspects' identity, nor the name of the group.
Police seized goods including 100,000 software products prepared for duplication onto CD, DVD and computer hardware, as well as 4,000 pornographic images, the latest film releases and video games and information for TV smart card duplication, which were sold through a network of sites.
The network marketed itself via anonymous emails, sometimes using encrypted messages.
The BSA is a global industry group that cracks down on the distribution of pirated software on behalf of its clients, which include Microsoft Corp., Symantec Corp. and Adobe Systems Inc..
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