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Spain smashes Chinese piracy ring

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Why you can trust SCMP
Graham Keeley

Spanish police say they have broken up a Chinese gang behind one of the biggest film pirating operations in Europe.

The gang was making fake versions of Hollywood films and hit music CDs worth up to Euro240,000 (HK$2.9 million) a day.

Police charged six members of the gang with stealing intellectual property. One woman and five men, all Chinese citizens, were arrested at four separate addresses on Wednesday in the Madrid area.

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Officers raided three store rooms in Leganes and a factory in Arganda del Rey, where they found 155,000 fake DVDs and CDs. There were also 240 video and audio 'grabbing' machines, plus the paper covers to package the merchandise.

Detectives estimated the amount of machinery meant the gang could make up to 80,000 illegal DVDs or CDs every day. Some of the films seized have not been on general release in Spain yet, like 10,000BC and The Chronicles of Spiderwick, which is due out today.

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Meanwhile, in Elche, southern Spain, police arrested a Chinese woman and two Spaniards in connection with the seizure of 86,000 pairs of children's shoes.

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