Terror groups are increasingly using money from sales of bootleg property like pirated music and video games to finance their organisations, the head of Interpol has told U.S. lawmakers.Isn't this convenient? Right when the RIAA and the MPAA are screaming the loudest about bootleggers and "lost sales", it's now determined to be a terrorist act to bootleg. Now the DMCA and the Patriot Act are one in the same... YAY.
"Interpol is sounding the alarm that intellectual property crime is becoming the preferred method of funding for a number of terrorist groups," Interpol Secretary General Ronald Noble testified before the U.S. House Committee on International Relations on Wednesday.
Don't you feel safer already?
Read the Reuters article over at Yahoo News UK.
From Reuters and Yahoo News UK:
Terrorists cashing in on pirate market
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Terror groups are increasingly using money from sales of bootleg property like pirated music and video games to finance their organisations, the head of Interpol has told U.S. lawmakers.
"Interpol is sounding the alarm that intellectual property crime is becoming the preferred method of funding for a number of terrorist groups," Interpol Secretary General Ronald Noble testified before the U.S. House Committee on International Relations on Wednesday.
Organised crime has traditionally been linked to the intellectual property crime industry, which sells bootleg CDs, DVDs, software and other items, Noble said. But Shi'ite Muslim guerrilla group Hizbollah, Chechen separatists and Northern Ireland paramilitaries also now receive money from illegal pirate sales. In some cases these groups even sell or distribute the contraband directly, he said.
About 5 percent to 7 percent of global trade, or $450 billion (282 billion pounds), is black market sales of counterfeit goods, Noble said, noting it is relatively low-risk in terms of punishment.
Demand is high because many people not do realize that buying pirated CDs, DVDs or video games is a crime, he added.
The international police agency chief said tracking information linking terrorist groups to funding was complex and more global coordination was needed. Interpol has proposed a three-year program aimed at intellectual property crime, partly to improve cross-border and multi-agency investigations.
Music industry representatives also testified, saying that globally as many as two in five recordings were pirate copies. They cited cases in Europe, South America and Asia of groups considered terrorist organisations that were involved in selling bootleg music.
Noble mentioned three instances involving ethnic Lebanese in South America, who he said were channelling money from sales of pirated music and video game discs to the Hizbollah and related organisations. One person arrested last year was found to have letters from groups "suspected of being associated with Hizbollah" thanking him for his donations, Noble said.
He said other groups included North African "fundamentalists terrorist" sympathisers who funnelled money from pirate sales, mentioning one incident that involved alleged connections to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network.
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