In a crackdown on movie piracy, the Anti-Piracy Cell of the Kerala Police arrested 12 persons from various parts of the state on Saturday. Pirated copies of latest Malayalam films, porn clips, computers, hard disks, pen drives and memory cards used to record the movies were seized from the accused persons, the police said.

The drive was led by Anti-Piracy Cell SP B K Prasanthan.In Thiruvananthapuram district, Shafeeq of Cellficks, Chullimanoor, Anad, and Murugan of Ananthu Videos at Nellimoodu near Kottukal were arrested.In Kollam district, Santhuraj, owner of Music City of Karunagappally, Sunil who sells CDs on a bicycle and Shifaz of Christmas Mobiles at Parippally were arrested. In Alapppuzha district, Harikumar of Mobile Planet at Mannar, Anshad of Icemart at Krishnapuram and Praveen of Preethi Mobiles at Chennithala were arrested.

Two persons - Siddique of Euro Mobiles at Thirurangadi and Hakeem of Mobile Show at Tirur - were arrested from Malappuram district. In Palakkad district, Haris of Sky Mobile at Pengatteri and Raghu of Kunjatta Mobiles at Ottappalam were arrested.

“Most of the shops are located near educational institutions. Apart from pirated copies of Malayalam, Tamil, Hindi and English movies, porn videos were seized from these shops,” said Prasanthan.

Anti-Piracy Cell deputy superintendent V Ragesh Kumar, detective inspector P S Rakesh, detective sub-inspectors Surendran Achari and Rupesh Kumar J R and civil police officers Sterlin Raj, Benny, Ajayan, Subeesh and Saji were part of the team that conducted the raids.

These arresteds must have sold piracy content for money!