Police seize pirated VCDs

JAKARTA: South Jakarta Police detective chief, Comr. Mardisyam, led an operation which resulted in the seizure of thousands of pirated VCDs at Blok M Plaza in South Jakarta, on Tuesday.

However, it was alleged that an "insider" was suspected to have leaked the information about the impending raid to many of the vendors, who in turn left their kiosks vacant during the raid, Antara reported. No vendors were arrested.

Officials of the Indonesian Recording Industry Association (Asiri) and Indonesian Video Recording Association (Asirevi) joined the police force during the operation.

Rully Sofyan of the Asirevi welcomed the police move, saying that some 20 million illegal VCDs have been sold throughout the country. Half of those are sold in Jakarta alone. -- JP