Organised crime gets heavy with copied software

It's not just Bilal Khan, sentenced recently for selling counterfeit software, who wants to make a quick buck from software piracy. Organised crime is getting in on the act too.

Copied CDs, DVDs, games and software are all being used to line the pockets of major criminal gangs, according to a report by the Alliance Against Counterfeiting and Piracy (AACP).

Intellectual property theft has long been viewed as a victimless crime by the public and a low-risk operation by the counterfeiters and, coupled with constantly developing technology making copying easier and cheaper, counterfeiting is now costing British business more than ever before – £10bn in 2003, up from £6.4bn in 1999.

Triad gangs, the Russian mafia and Irish paramilitary groups have all been proved to be using fake products to finance their operations, according to the AACP, whose backers include software piracy body the Business Software Alliance.

The report claims that while consumers may not be aware the guy at the boot sale offering cheap knocked-off versions of Windows is a mobster, there's a chance that he could be working off the debt he ran up with criminal gangs getting a passage to England.

Lavinia Carey, director general of the British Video Association, another of the AACP's backers, condemned those who are happy to buy things like fake PlayStation games for unwittingly, or even in some cases knowingly, boosting the funds of organised crime.

She told silicon.com: "Many consumers simply aren't aware of the problem, but those that are have no social conscience. This report is there to highlight the nature of the people who are lining their pockets from this."

Carey also highlighted how the industry was taking new measures to stop the counterfeiters in their tracks, including watermarking and harder to fake packaging.