stalking the video pirates; a special squad moves in on the movie counterfeiters

By DAVID M.
The news came from the usher in a movie theater in Manhattan.
The detectives quickly grabbed the criminal\'s tail, a tall man carrying a backpack, and tracked him to Brooklyn.
They have been spying on his house for several days.
Investigators then said they made a series of secret purchases that provided evidence for obtaining a search warrant.
The person the detectives are chasing is not a jewel thief or a drug dealer.
He\'s a movie pirate.
The detective is not a city policeman.
They are video police.
For police and prosecutors who are more concerned about violent crime, counterfeiting video tapes is always a low priority issue and is now very rampant in New York, with the American Film Association hiring a whole team of retired city detectives, they were set up in the Bronx to provide them with tens of thousands of dollars to cover the cost of whistleblowers and send them to the sidewalk in sterling to catch the scammers.
Pirated video from Hollywood studios-
It often starts with hidden cameras at the Manhattan theater and will arrive in Moscow or Malaysia within a few days ---
Jack Valentine, chairman of the Film Association, said it represents a global loss of up to $4 billion a year.
In the local area, the victims of the crime are legitimate video shopkeepers who pay 10 times as much for the tape as the owner who bought the pirated one;
This difference is rarely noticed by customers.
Philip Castellano, who owns Brooklyn\'s oldest video rental store, said he decided to close his business in January when he felt he had no choice but to start buying.
Steven Scavelli of Flash Distributors, the only video wholesaler in New York, said his number of customers had been reduced from 800 to 1,500 video stores.
\"Half of New York City\'s stores are illegal,\" he said . \"
To stop this trend, the Film Society hired William Shannon, a retired lieutenant from the Police Department\'s organized crime investigation division, in January 1997.
His top priority: the elimination of black people
Market \"lab\" that provides most pirated videos sold in or shipped from the United States \".
These labs are located in five districts, ranging in size from apartment apartments to commercial warehouses, with video batteries
Color copier and shrink recorderwrap machines.
Some people are able to produce hundreds of tapes at a time, and there is little difference between packaging and the original tape.
To find the lab and their mastermind.
Shannon quickly replicated a full team of detectives, hiring seven senior drug, internal and organized crime detectives from the police station, and five graduates from John Jay\'s criminal justice College as junior investigators.
Based on a second difficult to describe
Film Association staff use the old one at the story office on East Tremont Avenue
Old-fashioned detectives work, monitor fake labs, see who comes and goes, track pirate dealers on their routes, and build \"contours\" of cameras\"
Audience who provide raw materials for the film industry.
They also noted that cinemas in New York are a common source of pirated videos. (
In the absence of a movie audience, each version of a Hollywood movie has a unique set of hidden points, which is actually a serial number that allows experts to track the source of pirated videos. )
In addition to the city pension, former detectives are paid about the same salary as their previous jobs, and they have trained 1,000 police officers to find signs of piracy-
Vague fine print, missing bar code, sharp angle instead of round label.
They responded 24 hours a day when notified to help beat the police to turn their intuition into a collar.
They are now investigating whether a mainstream printing factory is producing many fake video boxes.
They\'re still talking to the police about running Hollywood.
Undercover men tried to sneak into a source of funds for a fake gang.
They usually pay up to $2,500 for a good message. -
Considering that many murder cases were cracked with $50 in street money, it was an amazing amount.
We have the best-
Paid informant in town. Shannon said.
Their advice came from all over the world: a DHL airline employee in Manhattan intercepted a shipment to Malaysia.
A bus line is called in a tip about a pirated video heading for Florida.
The angry wife betrayed their husband.
Honest retailers call to complain.
Most importantly, competing counterfeiters compete with each other.
\"We arrested people and they wanted to work for us when they finished their day in court . \"Shannon said.
A typical case began to be small but ended up causing a stir, Peter J. said.
British people who used to hunt down Colombian drug dealers for city police.
An event that ended last week began in September when the association provided information to Nassau County police about a store in Hempstead selling pirated films.
While searching for a bigger fish, Detective Nassau and association staff looked at the store until they found a man carrying tapes.
They followed him along his route, forcing another shop owner to report him, and extracted the dealer\'s phone records, which provided a \"roadmap\" for his entire network\"English said.
They were able to identify vendors for pirated tape, fake holographic photos and other packaging, and momand-
A popular video owner who buys dozens of pirated new versions at a time.
When the road map crossed the city line into Queens and Brooklyn, they asked for help from the state attorney general\'s office.
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Last week, with the end of the Nassau survey, the association\'s office in the Bronx was empty.
When the survey team sweeps from one store to another, everyone is on site.
The operation arrested 30,000 pirated tapes and 39 shopkeepers from 35 stores.
Flagship Entertainment Company in Oyster Bay
While Nassau police arrested Paula Maynard, 47, the owner of the shop, the British and two other association members quickly sorted out the store\'s inventory and took away hundreds of counterfeit tapes, felony charges of trademark violations
Sir, drive back to Bronx later.
The British say chasing pirated videos is almost as exciting as hunting drug lords.
\"It\'s like you never left,\" he said . \".
\"These people are killing people.
They told us that money is better than drugs, and it is not dangerous at all. \"Even posts
The arrest press conference appeared to be held after the drug attacks, with loot piled up on the table for public viewing.
\"It\'s just plastic boxes, not plastic bags,\" he said . \".
In order to avoid the burden on prosecutors from day-to-day cases, the association\'s investigators first tried to use civil measures to stop pirated dealers.
Another retired detective, Andy Brogan, said they have been seeking \"voluntary compensation\" for counterfeit tapes from 31 retailers since January \".
\"They allowed us to clean their stock and in return, we promised that we would not use it against them as long as they remained awake,\" he said . \".
So far, 17 of the 31 have accepted the deal.
Others face civil action.
Nevertheless, there are still enough criminal cases available for trial.
Last month, the Bronx district attorney\'s office, a frequent guest of the Film Association, tracked a fake tape from a street vendor to a lab in the East Harlem apartment building, which played 8,000 videos a week.
Five men were arrested, one of whom was arrested after he broke his foot as he jumped out of the window to escape.
On November, the Brooklyn district attorney\'s office raided a warehouse on McDonald\'s Avenue in Grafson, with two 12-
The counterfeiter runs an efficient assembly line on an hourly shift, with 544 VCR running simultaneously.
Investigators seized 40,000 fake labels, 120,000 video tapes and two retractions.
The packing machine and 26,000 pirated tapes were arrested and 9 people were arrested.
Some video detectives say their work is similar to their previous work, chasing drug dealers in an unfortunate way: their efforts often seem to be wasted.
\"If you get caught once or twice, the consequences are very small. this is not a deterrent . \"Shannon said.
Having over $1,000 of pirated videos is a felony, but hardly; the next, less-
He said the serious charges were a misdemeanor, a problem faced by most suspects after the plea deal.
Worse, he said, the judges issued loose penalties, arguing that video piracy is a crime without victims, if not harmless.
Imprisonment is rare.
Even four months before the release, the invisible Brooklyn photographer who was discovered by the Manhattan theater usher to record \"Donnie Blasco\" at the screening was allowed to plead guilty to reduce the charges of misdemeanor,
The prosecutor defended the deal by saying that in addition to receiving a three-year probation, the man also agreed to return his equipment in full and hand it over.
In Manhattan\'s biggest video piracy case, prosecutors used extortion regulations to seek long-term imprisonment for the accused.
On June 1996, the local prosecutor\'s office cracked a massive operation to produce and sell more than 100,000 pirated video tapes per week, and two of the six defendants fled to Israel.
Another man who fled but returned later admitted two felony crimes but was not jailed.
The trial of the other three ended on Thursday with two acquittal charges.
General Staff of middle management and jury.
Video detectives say they want pirates to be punished more severely, but they say they doubt the court will see piracy as a major crime.
\"When some judges get copyright and a guy stands in front of the Court selling fake copies,\" said Mr.
The British said, \"then I think they will do something about it.
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A version of this article was printed on page B00001 of the National edition on March 10, 1998, with the title: tracking video pirates;
The film counterfeiters entered a special group.