Hong Kong Customs is making every effort to root out copyright piracy activities including software piracy to protect intellectual property rights (IPR), Hong Kong Commissioner of Customs and Excise Timothy Tong Hin-ming Wednesday.

Commissioner Tong made the above statement after Hong Kong Customs successfully smashed a local pirated optical discs syndicate.

"The operation this morning shows that our officers are able, determined and highly effective in dealing with IPR infringements.It is the best answer to the concerns expressed by the trade, for example, as in the Business Software Alliance's (BSA's) Global Software Piracy Study.

The study, released Wednesday BSA (an industry organization representing the world's leading software developers), focuses on the problem of piracy confronting the trade.

The Customs raid, which took place in the early hours this morning, was closely supervised by the Assistant Commissioner of Customs, William Chow Oi-tung.

Commissioner Tong congratulated Chow and his team on their hardwork leading to the detection of what hopefully would be a landmark case. He hoped that the Organized and Serious Crimes Ordinance would be used for the first time to successfully freeze assets and proceeds from IPR-related crimes in Hong Kong.

Chow explained at a media seminar this afternoon details of thecase.

The syndicate smashed today was suspected to have operated a number of disc-replicating centers, storage centers, and a huge network of retail outlets of supplying pirated optical discs of computer software, and computer/TV games.

After the crackdown operation, Hong Kong Customs will for the first time apply the Organized and Serious Crimes Ordinance on intellectual property rights related crime to apply for a restraint order to freeze the assets of a syndicate worth nearly 20 million US dollars.

The success of this operation is part of Hong Kong Customs' continuing drive to maintain an effective intellectual property rights regime in Hong Kong.

Effective Customs enforcement is wellsupported by strengthened laws, proactive public education and enhanced co-operation with industry players.

On enforcement, Hong Kong Customs has one of the strongest dedicated teams (about 400 customs officers) in combating offensesrelating to intellectual property rights. It also has a dedicated team to tackle Internet piracy.

Source: Xinhua