Uruguayan Customs officials worked with Apdif Uruguay (local industry anti-piracy group) in an investigation which led to the seizure of hundreds of thousands of pirated music and movie products. Officials discovered a smuggling ring that imports CDs from Uruguay to sell in the pirate markets of Brazil. The smugglers sourced blank discs from the free port of Montevideo and used the duty free shops as distribution points.
This allowed the pirates to evade import duties on both sides of the border and increase their profits by at least 50%. Apdif Uruguay and Uruguayan Customs officials raided the shops during October. The raids led to the seizure of a shipment of 750,000 blank DVD-Rs which had left Montevideo without proper documentation about its destination and content.
A further raid, carried out in conjunction with the Brazilian authorities, in the city of Santana do Livramento across the border, led to the seizure of 257,000 blank CD-Rs and DVD-Rs. The blank discs were destined for the Brazilian city of Porto Alegre in a touring bus belonging to the musical Brazilian group “Toque Fandangueiro”. Documents seized along with the cargo indicated that these discs allegedly originated in Miami.
Result for: pirate market
In mid-October, the Argentine coast guard targeted one of the most notorious piracy markets. The La Salada market has been targeted before, and has a reputation for housing enormous amounts of counterfeit products. The Economic Crime Unit executed several search warrants on warehouses around the market, located in the suburbs of Buenos Aires.
The raids were the result of an investigation that lasted for a year, targeting imported products entering the Port of Argentina found to have suspect invoices and to be undervalued. The products would (and do) end up in pirate markets all across the country as they move through the illicit chain.
The actions yielded five million discs containing music and films, 63 burners, two industrial printers and 200 master plates that are used for professional album cover replication. Several organized crime syndicates have been identified as operating in the market.
