Anti-piracy laws which force compact disc traders to prove their goods are genuine have been used for the first time, leading to scores of arrests and the seizure of more than $7 million in contraband goods.
The Customs and Excise Department said yesterday the ground-breaking seizure heralded a crackdown which could quadruple the confiscation of fake CDs.
In an operation codenamed 'Operation Thunderbolt', 300 officers raided 84 shops in 10 notorious arcades including Shamshuipo, Mongkok, Tsuen Wan and Wan Chai at the weekend.
Investigators seized more than 220,000 illicit compact discs - including Steven Spielberg's newly-released movie, The Lost World, and Luc Besson's The Fifth Element, starring Bruce Willis - and arrested 77 men and five women.
Calvin Leung Ho, head of the department's Intellectual Property Investigation Bureau, predicted the new laws would increase seizures of fake goods by 400 per cent. Mr Leung described the new laws as 'the best in the world'.
They were introduced on June 27 after the United States placed Hong Kong on its watch list for copyright piracy. The list names countries under scrutiny for alleged failure to protect intellectual property rights.