ELSPA-Aided UK Game Piracy Raids Successful

British trade organization ELSPA (Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers Association) has revealed details of a major police operation against video game pirates, with twenty-nine suspects being arrested in the North of England. Merseyside and Lancashire police raided seventeen separate addresses in the Sefton and Skelmersdale areas of Liverpool, with a total of five major duplicating operations apparently being uncovered. The dawn raids involved more than 135 police, trading standards officers, BPI (British Phonographic Industry), FACT (Federation Against Copyright Theft) and ELSPA operatives and follows a six month investigation into governmental benefit fraud and the connected creation, supply and distribution of counterfeit CDs, DVDs and video games. ELSPA claim that around 70 percent of the pirated goods were sold in Liverpool’s Stanley Dock and Walton Market areas, with the remaining 30 percent going to smaller businesses and market stalls in the Liverpool area. The arrests follow a number of regional crackdowns on copyright piracy in the UK, with ELSPA recently helping to ensure a 15 month jail sentence for a pirate in the East Midlands of England, as well as other arrests around the country.