Microsoft sees sophisticated pirate operation

SAN FRANCISCO: Four suspected software pirates arrested in Los Angeles this

week with counterfeit Microsoft products were running a big, sophisticated

operation but failed to fake the anti-piracy hologram on the disks, a company

security executive said on Saturday.

On Thursday, the FBI seized $10.5 million in counterfeit Microsoft software

and arrested four men who allegedly smuggled several different versions of fake

software products from Asia and sold them at deep discounts. A fifth man is

still at large. "They were a very sophisticated group," Richard

LaMagna, senior manager of worldwide piracy enforcement at Redmond,

Washington-based Microsoft Corp., told Reuters.

LaMagna said the group was well-organized, well-funded and appeared to be

"distributing millions of dollars of software." He said that the

software CDs seized included Microsoft's Windows Millennium Edition. The genuine

version carries an edge-to-edge hologram as a security feature, which LaMagna

said the pirates tried to imitate. "We're pleased that they haven't been

able to do that very well," he said. The pirates had placed stickers that

looked like the hologram on their CDs, but these were easy to peel off.

According to published reports, the FBI on Thursday arrested Chien Sim Cheh,

also known as Ted Chien; Hung Gia Huynh, also known as Raymond Wong; Henry Chi

Wong and Eddy Chun Yao King. A fifth man, Cheuk Hong Wong, remains at large. All

the men are Taiwan-born and all but King are naturalized US citizens, the

Industry Standard reported. Microsoft had worked with the FBI on the case for

more than a year, LaMagna said.

(C) Reuters Limited 2001.