Dawood Ibrahim has completely taken over the multi-crore video piracy market

Real pirates of Bollywood: D-company

 

 

India's most wanted Dawood Ibrahim has completely taken over the multi-crore video piracy market, which is primarily functioning from Maharashtra, a well-researched RAND report has revealed. The report explains the lacunae in the film industry which Dawood has shrewdly milked.

"Although India's prolific film industry had been a profit centre and cultural icon for decades, it was, surprisingly, not recognised by the government as a legitimate industry until 2001. This status barred legitimate financial institutions and private investors from financing films. Ibrahim tasked his brother Noora to step into this vacuum and provide debt financing to major Indian filmmakers," the report states.

"Once the three elements of D-Company's operations (control of production, distribution, and manufacturing/ piracy) were in place, the gang was able to launch a racket to control the masters for most Bollywood and dubbed Hollywood films distributed in India," the report said. From start to finish, D-Company dominated every step of the film-making process. Hence it was able to control most of the region's film piracy. Several examples from around South Asia illustrate D-Company's control of the racket as the technology for creating high-quality pirate masters evolved.

Taking into account the raids and seizures made in last six months across India, CDs and DVDs, the report states that pirated CDs and DVDs worth around Rs10 crore have been seized. Camcord quality CDs and DVDs are passe and the quality of pirated copies available in the market is superior than earlier, reveals the report. Also the availability of the pirated copies has become easier and quicker — a pirated CD of a movie is available on the very day it is released.

"We have information that Dawood Ibrahim has a widespread network of piracy business in South-East Asia and Dubai. The network is controlled from Pakistan, investigations have suggested. We had made big cases in video piracy and, during investigations linkages from across the border have been established. The recent case was that of the leakage of the masterprint of What's Your Rashee. As far as usage of money generated through piracy being used for funding terrorism is concerned, central agencies are keeping track of this," said Deven Bharati, additional commissioner of police, Mumbai crime branch.

In 2005, Pakistani authorities raided three Karachi-based factories belonging to a company called Sadaf. Investigations revealed that Amin private ltd (a subcontractor for Sadaf), with active partners Mohammad Amin Motiwala, Zubair Amin Motiwala, and Abdul Jabbar Motiwala, jointly owned the company. The report mentions that these factories came under the FBI's suspicion for possible terror funding and material support for terrorism, including allegations that they are manufacturing jihadi propaganda.