Authorities in Italy have closed down one of Europe's
largest ever internet piracy rings, believed to have had an annual
turnover of €100m (£70m) through sales of counterfeit software,
music and films.
The police have charged 181 people and 10,300 others are under
further investigation. The series of raids netted €118m worth of
illegal copies of software from suppliers including Adobe, Apple,
Macromedia, Microsoft and Symantec as well as pirated music and
films.
The investigation, codenamed Operation Mouse, was supported by
the Business Software Alliance and the Federation Against Music
Piracy.
Beth Scott, vice-president (EMEA) of the Business Software
Alliance, said the case marked the "very real threat" from
"increasingly sophisticated" online piracy gangs.
According to the BSA, Italy has the second highest piracy rate
for business software in Western Europe at 47%.
The authorities used IP address tracing, log file analysis and
software to break encrypted messages as part of their efforts to
smash the network, which advertised on the internet, communicated
via e-mail and distributed goods using mail order.