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Police shuts down an illegal DVD manufacturing shop

Police shuts down a large illegal video recording shop, which produced pirated video, audio and computer products

MOSCOW, February 1 (Itar-Tass) — Moscow police shut down a large illegal video recording shop in Tver, which produced and sold pirated video, audio and computer products, spokeswoman for the department for economic security and fighting corruption under the Interior Ministry Irina Volk told Itar-Tass on Wednesday.

"For the first, time, police retrieved an archive which comprised over 8,000 templates for the production of pirated DVDs," Volk said. The criminals caused an estimated damage of 50 billion roubles to legitimate owners.

The operation was carried out by personnel of the 3rd operations/search unit of the economic security department, together with specialists of the main investigation department. The operation was supported by Moscow special task force units.  More than 300 police officers took part in the operation.

In total police took more than 20 measures in order to expose the wrongdoers. They found 11 production lines at the illegal shop, which manufactured DVDs, including three CD production lines and seven printers to transfer images onto counterfeit products.

The shop operated round the clock without pausing for weekends, while the production capacities of these lines reached some 300,000 discs a day.

Taking into account current retail prices, the daily turnover of each line totalled 4.5 million roubles, while the total daily turnover reached over 36 million roubles.

In the shop's storage areas, detectives found more than one million of pirated DVDs, prepared for shipment to and sale in Moscow and other Russian regions, as well as to Ukraine and Belarus.

Among the confiscated products were audio-visual productions of all major Russian television channels and the latest releases of domestic and foreign film producers.

During a separate operation in Moscow, police found and shut down the print shop, which manufactured packaging materials for discs, and five storage facilities with more than two million pirated DVDs.

The spokeswoman said criminal proceedings were opened against the wrongdoers. Moscow police continue to implement measures that aim to expose the accomplices of the criminal group, and the locations of stored counterfeit products.