On February 27^th, 2002, members of the Organized Crime Agency of British Columbia (OCABC), in partnership with Microsoft Canada and a local private investigative company, arrested a 58 year old Abbotsford man for the large scale manufacture of counterfeit computer programs.

Prior to OCABC becoming involved, Microsoft Canada and the private investigative firm had made several successful purchases of small amounts of pirated software in a short term undercover operation. The dollar value of the programs being counterfeited and distributed for profit indicated this was a large operation with international implications. OCABC was approached and became a part of this investigation.

On February 27^th, 2002, the suspect was arrested as he conducted another transaction with the undercover operator. This purchase was for $400,000.00 (retail) worth of pirated computer programs from the suspect for which he was to receive $2,500.00. He was taken into custody without incident.

A search warrant was then executed at the suspect’s Abbotsford residence, where approximately $4.5 million in further counterfeited computer programs belonging to Microsoft and other companies such as Corel and Adobe were seized. This software along with other items seized during the search indicated the suspect had been supplying counterfeit computer programs on a large, international scale via the Internet. This is the largest recorded seizure in Canada of pirated programs, where it appears the suspect was burning the CD’s himself rather than in a factory setting.