FBI raids video shop, two men arrested

The Federal Bureau of Investigation arrested yesterday a video shop manager and its employee following a raid at a video shop in Chalan Kanoa where thousands of alleged pirated DVDs and VHS tapes and other items were confiscated.

Il Cho, 46, and Min Jo, 50, both Koreans, were arrested for three counts of copyright infringement. Cho is reportedly the manager of Seoul Video Store while Jo is an employee of the establishment.

The two were brought to the U.S. District Court for the NMI yesterday for a bail hearing. Cho appeared with his attorney, Bruce Berline. Jo was with attorney David Banes.

U.S. District Court for the NMI Chief Judge Alex R. Munson allowed the temporary release of Cho and Jo on $1,000 and $1,500 unsecured bonds, plus other conditions.

Munson set the preliminary hearing for May 1, 2008, at 9:30am.

An FBI special agent said that on March 18, 2008, he spoke with Ellis Miller, the owner of three Kevin Video Stores on Saipan.

The special agent said that Miller claimed that he started his business in 1997 and that he has been aware of the sale and rental of pirated videotapes and DVSs by other video rental businesses on Saipan.

Miller has retained an attorney to pursue a civil suit against his competitors who are allegedly selling and renting pirated movies.

The agent said that he reviewed the photographs taken at Seoul Video Store by a person who is assisting Miller’s attorney in collecting evidence for a civil lawsuit against several movie rental companies.

The agent said that on March 19, he asked a “cooperating witness” to attempt to rent pirated videos from Seoul Video.

An employee of the store directed the “cooperating witness” to a shelf containing several empty DVD containers with titles on the containers such as Bucket List, Juno, and Bee Movie.

The “cooperating witness” asked the employee if he could rent the three movies. The employee went to a backroom and returned with the three movies.

The “cooperating witness” told the employee that he thought Juno was still in theaters and therefore not available for rent.

The employee answered that the DVD came from Korea where the movie has already been in theaters and therefore is available for release.

The “cooperating witness” rented the movies for $2 each and provided them to the special agent.

The special agent said that on March 20 he spoke with Kevin Sun, the deputy director for U.S. Anti-Piracy Operations for the Motion Picture Association of America, who told him that Juno and Bucket List had not yet been released in DVD, therefore any copy currently available to the public would have to be pirated.

The agent said that they then searched the Seoul Video Store on March 26 where they seized thousands of DVDs and VHS tapes of currently released motion pictures, 32 DVD and VHS players/recorder, 10 boxes of blank DVDRs, 26 boxes of label paper, 10 boxes of VHS labels, 10 DVD “burners”, six bottles of printing ink, and several pages of DVD labels.

The agent said Cho and Jo admitted that they purchased the DVDs from Korea and copied them onto VHS tapes for sale and rent to customers.