Randolph Hobson Guthrie III, the international DVD piracy kingpin profiled recently in Wired, pled guilty today in Mississippi federal court to Conspiracy to Traffic in Counterfeit Goods.
He agreed to forfeit $823,833.00 to the U.S. government, and may receive penalties of up to five years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000.
Snip from a media advisory issued this afternoon by the Motion Picture Association of America, which supported the case against Guthrie:
In July 2004, officers from the Chinese Ministry of Public Security and the Shanghai Public Security Bureau arrested Guthrie, along with five others in Shanghai. Investigators seized more than 210,000 counterfeit DVDs. Guthrie was then brought to the United States in October.
Link to Associated Press account. Snip:
The Southern District of Mississippi issued an 18 count indictment against Guthrie in July 2005. Guthrie was charged with conspiracy, smuggling, trafficking in counterfeit goods, money laundering conspiracy, criminal forfeiture, and criminal copyright infringement violations.
The investigation, entitled "Operation Spring," included ICE agents in China, an ICE Special Agent-in-Charge Office in Houston, the National Intellectual Property Rights Center in Washington, D.C. and the Internal Revenue Service's Criminal Investigations Division. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement was established in March 2003. It is the largest investigative arm of the Department of Homeland Security.
Link to "The Decline & Fall of Randolph Hobson Guthrie III," in Wired issue 13:10.
