Piracy Bust Nets $30 Million Worth of Software

In one of the largest-ever computer-software piracy busts in Southern California, Westminster police and the FBI confiscated an estimated $30 million worth of counterfeit Microsoft software and arrested about 10 people in Los Angeles County late Wednesday afternoon. Investigators raided five warehouses--two in Long Beach, three in Paramount--as part of an ongoing examination into Orange County-based Asian gangs trafficking the illegal software. Hundreds of compact disks sporting the Microsoft logo were found stacked inside warehouses, as well as at least one $1.5-million commercial CD duplicator, police said. The cache included illicit copies of Microsoft’s Office, which retails around $450; and pirate versions of two of its operating systems, Windows 95 and Windows 98, which normally retail for about $150.