Cracking down on movie piracy, the anti-piracy cell arrested 18 persons from various parts of the state on Friday. According to the police, pirated copies of the latest films, porn clips, computers, hard disks and pen drives were seized.

The drive was led by anti-piracy cell SP B K Prasanthan. Joji Thomas, owner of CD Zone shop, Aneesh Kumar and Sugunan who ran a platform CD shop and Rakesh Babu of Creative Systems shop were arrested from Kottayam.

Vipin Krishna of Nisari music shop and Noushad were arrested in Alappuzha.
The police arrested Syed Alavi of Mohammed store, Mohammed Riyaz of China Bazaar and Sharafali of Manakda 4G shop. In Thrissur, Raju, Faisal of Thavakkal mobiles and Abdul Rasaq of Illees shop were arrested while Riyaz of Choice shop and Musthafa of Gazal shop were arrested from Palakkad.
Logan shop owner Prajith, Shakthi Videos owner Shankaran, Suresh of Media shop and Sudeepan of Ardra

Communications from Thiruvananthapuram and Shameer of Friends mobile shop and Raheen of Choice shop from Kollam were arrested. “Most of the shops were located near educational institutions. Apart from pirated copies of movies, porn videos were seized,” said Prasanthan.

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