United States FBI Goes To China
Posted on: July 30th, 2007 by Lynn AsburyUnited States FBI Goes To China
I must be out of the loop. I thought the US Federal Bureau of Investigation, (FBI), was restricted to US territories. Today I leaned that, according to zdnet.com, they have an office in Bejing, China: “The bust started in 2005 when police discovered that Chinese gangs were colluding with suspects in the United States and notified the FBI’s Beijing office”. (Would the reciprocal be true? Does this mean that the Chinese Police have an office in your city?)
Anyways, the FBI, working closely with Microsoft, has been tracking this Chinese CD gang for years and with the assistance of Chinese officials finally made the bust seizing 250,000 CDs worth over $500,000. These CDs were not just games or movies, they were expensive software programs such as, Windows Vista, XP and Server as well as Office 2003 and 2007, and in eight different languages. Sources say that most of the pirated CDs were headed for US and Canada.
China is a haven for pirated software. Businessweek.com had this to say: “China has made some progress but still 86% of the software used in China is counterfeit”.
Holywood, (the Motion Picture Association), is also putting pressure on China and the Chinese CD counterfeiters. In a report by FightTheFakes.com “U.S. Studios Win China Piracy Case” Beijing courts have twice this week awarded damages to US movies producers against Beijing companies.
Lynn.
