26 October - 1 November 2000

Thousands of pirated CDs confiscated during massive police raid

• Anti-piracy conference starts in Malta this morning

by Franco Aloisio

A conference to discuss ways to combat counterfeits and piracy starts today, less than 24 hours after one of the largest anti-piracy raids was carried out by police. It is estimated that around 100,000 pirated CDs were confiscated in the raid.
The CDs were lifted on Tuesday afternoon and yesterday morning from a villa in Bahar ic-Caghaq and from two stores – one in Pietà and the other in Imriehel.
Four persons were arrested among them Joseph Difesa, owner of the villa in Bahar ic-Caghaq where the CDs were allegedly being copied. The seized material consisted of playstation games, software and audio CDs. The copied CDs were mass manufactured inside the villa in Bahar ic-Caghaq, which is better known as being the location used for the shooting of the popular soap opera Ipokriti. Yesterday afternoon, police officials in the presence of Joseph Difesa, loaded the pirated CDs from his villa into a van. The CDs were taken to the Police Headquarters in Floriana.
Police source said apart from the pirated CDs, several copying and recording equipment, together with photocopiers were confiscated. Police investigations are still ongoing and other persons involved in the widespread piracy racket are expected to be arrested and interrogated in the coming hours and days.
Meanwhile, the anti-piracy conference which begins this morning will bring together the IFPI, which represents the recording industry; the European Anti-Counterfeiting Network (REACT); and representatives of other industry groups such as the European Leisure Software Publishers (ELSPA); as well as Harley-Davidson, Levi Strauss, Microsoft and Louis Vuitton. Officials of the Hard Rock Cafe, which opens in Malta next month, will also be attending the conference.
A series of special training sessions for officers of the Maltese Police and Customs services will be held during the conference, to help them in their job to tackle the problem of counterfeit and pirated music, software, clothing and other products. Counterfeiting and piracy are major problems in various countries around the world and piracy also has negative effects on the economy. It is believed that in Malta alone, piracy costs companies in the region of Lm1,000,000 a year.
The International Chamber of Commerce estimates that counterfeiting and piracy account for eight to 10 per cent of all legitimate trade globally.
An increasing amount of the pirate traffic is being controlled by organised criminal gangs who siphon money away from the legitimate local market-place.