The dealer met the undercover detective inside a dark warehouse in Northeast Washington. Money changed hands. Soon after, in the parking lot of a nearby liquor store, the dealer handed over a black bag containing the illegal goods.
Over the next few months, three more buys were made. But this wasn't the usual undercover sting, targeting trafficking in drugs and guns. The detective was buying Jodie Foster in "Flightplan," Charlize Theron in "North Country" and Viggo Mortensen in "A History of Violence." She bought bootlegged movies, hundreds of them, at the warehouse, which served as a hub for a thriving area piracy ring, law enforcement officials said.
Most of the bootlegged DVDs came from secret recordings of hit movies that were illegally made in theaters. They were mass-produced on DVD burners within weeks -- even days -- of box-office premieres, authorities said.
The recording and music industries each lost nearly $300 million to such pirated products in the United States last year, business groups say. Premieres of blockbusters, including "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire," draw a flurry of activity, and pirated copies can appear on the Internet within hours, with bootleg DVDs right behind.
FBI agents and D.C. police raided the warehouse Nov. 10, seizing more than 3,000 bootlegged DVDs, hundreds of labels for DVD cases and 1,000 music CDs, according to papers filed in U.S. District Court in Washington. Among other things, the raid turned up 40 copies of the movie "Get Rich or Die Tryin' " -- which had just opened in theaters the previous day, court papers reveal.
The warehouse purportedly was the home of Y Y Enterprises Inc., a commercial retail distributor. Police and FBI agents arrested three people on federal charges of conspiring to traffic in counterfeit goods: Qiyao Yuan, 43, of Lanham; Ping Chen, 45, of Falls Church; and Cecilia Rodriguez, 24, of Silver Spring. Authorities described the three as "owners and agents" of Y Y Enterprises and said they took part in the undercover deals. The conspiracy charge carries a maximum prison term of five years.
A black-market network of distributors got the DVDs to the brick building in the 1200 block of Fourth Street NE, authorities said. The undercover detective was given a list of titles that could be purchased, typically for less than $3 apiece, they said.
"When you go to Blockbuster, don't they have a list of the new releases?" asked Michael Mines, special agent in charge of criminal investigations for the FBI's Washington field office. Same with the movie pirates. "It's like a menu."
Law enforcement agencies are working with the entertainment industry to thwart piracy on a number of fronts. Although much attention is given to the booming trade of pirated movies and music over the Internet, police and industry officials said the warehouse operation represents another problem: the sale of bootlegged "hard copies."
Recent raids in New York and other cities have turned up massive caches of bootlegged movies in residences and small businesses. Police recently seized more than 18,000 pirated movies in a Bronx barbershop, authorities said.
The Washington area is more apt to be a market than a manufacturing place for bootlegs, and investigators believe that the warehouse's goods came from New York. The warehouse, they said, had steady traffic and probably was being used as storage for other sales. Bootlegs are also sold on the street, near Metro and subway stations and at flea markets, malls and curbside vending stalls. On some D.C. streets, hawkers even walk up and down the median, copies of a dozen DVDs in their hands.
Industry executives and law enforcement officials blame cheaper technology for fueling the trade and moving pirated copies to the streets more quickly.
