Authorities in the United States has arrested a 33-year-old man from Dewsbury in northern England and a 36-year-old man from Upton for pirating “The Expendables 3” a Hollywood movie.
US investigators revealed that a US-launched investigation into the top notch pirating of the blockbuster film “The Expendables 3” led to the apprehension of the two British men.
Los Angeles-based officers with the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency disclosed that the movie which was unveiled in mid-August, was pirated, and around July 25 a high-quality version of it appeared on the Internet.
US authorities alleged that the two men stole the film from a cloud-based system. The film leak was viewed several hundreds of thousands of times online and led to a huge loss for the film makers Millennium Films and Lionsgate.
Detained by the City of London Police's intellectual property crime unit, the two suspect faces charges of conspiring to illegally distribute the action movie sequel, ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) unit revealed.
According to HSI agent in charge Claude Arnold, "The film and television production industry contribute more than $80 billion a year to the domestic economy and their continued success is vital to the prosperity of the United States."
"Internet crooks don't pay wages or taxes. They don't fund pensions and healthcare plans. All they do is get rich at the expense of those who do. These arrests should serve as a warning shot across the bow of online pirates that we intend to hold them accountable for their crimes," he added.
However, according to an ICE statement, the two suspects whose identities are yet to be disclosed are due to appear in court again in May 2015.
Detective Chief Inspector Danny Medlycott of London's Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit (PIPCU), cited in the US statement that "The public needs to be aware that piracy is not a victimless crime."
