Police bust biggest-ever pirate DVD factory in Saigon

By Quoc Thang   August 6, 2016 | 11:39 pm PT
Police bust biggest-ever pirate DVD factory in Saigon
Workers from the pirated disc mill in Ho Chi Minh City being interrogated by police. Photo by VnExpress/Quoc Thang
The illegal plant was producing 15,000 discs per day.

Ho Chi Minh City police raided what they called the largest illegal disc production operation early Sunday morning, seizing tens of thousands of pirated DVDs from a shop as part of a crackdown on widespread bootlegging.

The underground factory on To Ngoc Van Street in District 12, registered under the name Van Phat Thinh Limited Company, only operated at night but had a complete production line with modern machinery worth millions of U.S. dollars, the police said.

The factory was capable of pirating around 15,000 music and movie discs per day, making it the largest pirate disc manufacturing plant ever discovered in Ho Chi Minh City.

The owners used a lorry to transport the discs, a police officer said, adding that it had taken several months to investigate the case.

The owner was not at the factory at the time of the raid, but the premises have been sealed and thousands of discs have been seized.

Intellectual property violations have become common across Vietnam in recent years despite numerous efforts to crack down by authorities.

Piracy is a flourishing industry in Vietnam with bootleg discs widely available for sale. Most are smuggled in from abroad, particularly Cambodia and China.

Counterfeit CDs are widely available for about $1 each, while DVDs can be bought for about $2.

 
 
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