14 DAY TRIAL // Good thing I found this before going home for some well deserved resting time. This press release I found (I'm still laughing because of the title - "Balls To The Haul"), says that an early morning raid at a Halifax car boot sale led to the largest console chipping seizure ever discovered in the UK. Newly appointed Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families (get ready for it), Ed Balls was apparently very impressed with how the raid went.
The piece reads on about "Mr Balls, who is known to be one of Prime Minister Gordon Brown's closest allies, and who has been the Member of Parliament for Normanton since 2005," and how the man attended crucial raids, in ridding the land of modders.
Care to know what they found at just one guy's residence...? "The discovery, from a residential property in Halifax came about after a raid on the town's car boot sale on Sunday 29th July, where a 23 year-old man was earlier chased down and arrested. Later in the day, at the man's premise, West Yorkshire Trading Standards officers and West Yorkshire Police, unearthed a staggering 246 Wii and 168 Xbox 360 consoles with a retail value in excess of ?125,000."
Don't go anywhere. This was just the tip of the iceberg: "Also seized from the property in the joint operation were: 19 PSPs, 12 DS Lites, six PlayStation 2s (Slimline and standard models) and six PlayStation 3s, along with computers used for the duplication of copied discs, the chips themselves intended for the chipping process, 300-400 copied games discs, and ?5,000 in cash."
Two more "individuals" of the same modding and burning "genre" were also detained for selling burned DVDs and CDs. They both had a total of over 5000 discs which were seized with a retail value of over ?50,000. You probably want to know what happened to all that hardware they found, am I right? Well, according to the same piece, "all consoles have now been sent to ELSPA's (the Entertainment & Leisure Software Publishers Association) Anti-Piracy Unit (APU) for forensic examination." Uuu!
Councillor Geoff Driver, of the Trading Standards Committee, added: "This service is determined to strike hard against individuals involved in this illegal industry. We will continue to work closely with the Police and industry bodies to ensure that these activities are stamped out. If anybody has more information about this illegal activity then they should contact Consumer Direct on 08454 040506."
Michael Rawlinson, managing director of ELSPA commented: "I congratulate West Yorkshire Trading Standards and west Yorkshire Police for what stands as a landmark seizure of chipped consoles and illegally copied discs. The scale of the operation and the removal of counterfeit material from the market place will have an immediate impact on local businesses in the area."
Well, with Mr Balls and friends out there, crime in the UK doesn't pay! Be good chaps all of you and get the original stuff. I guarantee it involves less fuss and better quality. Plus, your system will probably live longer.