Police raid pirated DVD dealer

Yangpu district police have raided a pirated DVD supplier that sold more than 1 million yuan ($163,309) in counterfeit DVDs and other video discs over the last two years, Yangpu district police said Wednesday.

Police arrested six suspects in what they called the biggest case of its kind this year, according to a press release from the Yangpu District Public Security Bureau.

The arrests came in the wake of a three-month investigation into the supplier.

The investigation began in March after residents tipped off police about a warehouse on Pudian Road that held a large stock of video discs presumed to be pirated copies of movies, television shows and other entertainment programs.

The warehouse had been abandoned by the time police started looking into the facility. However, the tip led investigators to a former tenant surnamed Li, who had since rented another warehouse on the second floor of a building in Pudong New Area.

Li received a lot of packages each day from Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, police said. After receiving the packages, Li would immediately contact her clients to sell the products.

Investigators watched Li for several days. Based on the number of people and vehicles coming and going from the warehouse each day, they surmised that she was a major dealer of pirated video discs.

Police raided the warehouse on July 3 and arrested Li, another suspect surnamed Feng and four buyers. They confiscated more than 120,000 pirated discs containing all manner of content, including popular Western television shows such as The Big Bang Theory, Downton Abbey and The Good Wife.

Police said that Li admitted she was the source for a majority of the pirated discs sold in the city, according to the press release. She had been selling pirated discs since July 2011. She bought the discs for 1.5 yuan a piece and resold them for 3 yuan to 4 yuan. She sold more than 300,000 pirated discs over the period.

The case remains under investigation.