Police Smash Suspected Pan-european Music Piracy Ring

London, UK (Top40 Charts/ IFPI) - More than 100 police officers in four countries have taken action against those involved in the manufacture, supply and sale of unlicensed CD and DVD box sets that generated millions of euro in illegal sales revenues. The Masterbox series contained unlicensed music, films and television programmes. Each box set included an MP3 disc featuring up to 60 albums, some of them pre-release titles. Music from artists such as Black Eyed Peas, Michael Jackson, Green Day and Robbie Williams was found in the Masterbox series, which ran to more than 50 editions.

Copies of Masterbox had a street value of around �40 and were sold informally across the Netherlands. It is estimated that more than 450,000 copies of the various editions were sold, totalling more than �19 million in illegal sales.

Police searched eight business premises and five homes across Belgium, Bulgaria, the Netherlands and Spain over the last few days. The action was supported by IFPI, which represents the recording industry worldwide, who assisted the police in identifying and forensically testing evidence.

A major cross-border anti-piracy action

Jeremy Banks, director, anti-piracy at IFPI, today welcomed the internationally coordinated police action: "This was a major cross-border anti-piracy action against an operation that we believe was causing very significant losses to the legitimate music industry. Police took action against a gang that had generated millions of euro in illegal revenues by infringing the rights of artists, songwriters and record producers."

Officers from the Dutch fiscal police (FIOD-ECD) arrested three individuals in the Netherlands who are suspected of selling copies of Masterbox. A further suspect was arrested and held for questioning in Belgium.

The most recent editions of Masterbox have been produced in Bulgaria and police from the country's Cyber Crime Unit raided manufacturing plants in Sofia and Plovdiv.

Police in Poland, the Czech Republic and Italy had previously raided plants that had been used manufacture the box sets, but this was the first time international coordinated action was taken against the whole Masterbox supply chain.