In a huge show of force, federal officials in California USA arrested a software piracy group suspected of pirating $100 million dollars in software. They Ali family is considered to be key figures in an investigation called 'Operation Cyberstorm'. Part of the alleged operation included buying software from Microsoft through the Microsoft Authorized Education Reseller (AER) program at greatly reduced prices, then reselling it at much higher prices to non-academic entities. Red Herring said:
Swat teams rarely visit the McMansion-covered hills above Niles Canyon in Fremont, California. So locals were amazed in April to see a dozen unmarked cars careen into the neighborhood and unleash a posse of heavily armed federal agents encased in bulletproof vests to arrest Mirza and Sameena Ali. They had allegedly pirated more than $100 million in software as the core of what Microsoft is calling "the largest criminal conspiracy in the history of the software industry." The Alis are the key figures in a group of 27 people arrested as part of Operation Cyberstorm, a massive investigation involving half a dozen government agencies. |
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Source: Red Herring
