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A friend of mine wrote this article. It's been gently edited for grammar but otherwise is entirely his work. It refers to the middle part of their statistics page.

A Problem for Society

Counterfeit DVD production has been found to finance hard drugs. A seizure of counterfeit DVDs from a boot sale in East Sussex led police to raid premises where drugs with a street value of £20,000 were seized.

£20,000 is nothing. Let's take some real life figures. In January 2002 alone, Merseyside police recovered drugs, with a street value of £402,630. That's 20x the amount they found in Essex. There are only 31 days in January, so the daily average was around £13,000. That's the DAILY AVERAGE. £20,000 doesn't seem like such a big amount now, does it? Lets put it another way. In February of 2004, a 'gang was busted in Essex, with 69Kg of cocaine. The National Crime Squad claims this had a street value of £8 MILLION. Now, if 69Kg is worth £8M, how much cocaine does £20k buy you? The answer – 172.5g. Not exactly a 'large amount'. That much Cocaine, would fit inside a can. (a 'coke can' perhaps?)

Sources - http://www.nationalcrimesquad.police.uk/Hot_off_the_press/2004/february/06.html, http://www.ukwatch.org.uk/crimstop.html

Following an 18 month investigation where FACT worked with HMC&E, a seizure was made on parcels imported from the Far East and Pakistan, leading to a single haul of more than 23,000 counterfeit DVDs.

Good to know they work so diligently. By the way, you do realize that 23,000 over 18 months, is an average of approximately 42 a day. To contrast, in 2002, over the months of May and June only, the first Harry Potter film sold 1,832,725 copies (that's 30,044.6 copies a day, on average, or more copies of one film, sold on one day, than their 18 month investigation netted.

Source – http://www.bva.org.uk/content.asp?id=6242&headline=69

As a result of leads from the FBI, FACT was involved in an investigation into an organised crime group with bases in Northern Ireland, Sheffield and Manchester. This resulted in a large quantity of counterfeited DVDs and equipment being seized as well as a forged police warrant card, 20 credit cards, a stun gun, an imitation firearm, various offensive weapons and £21,000 in cash. This then led to 100 search warrants being issued throughout America and Europe, showing the extent to which this particular crime network had spread.

Got to love how they describe things. “FACT was involved”. This could mean anything. Indeed, it could mean that one of the members of the 'crime group' worked at Blockbuster, another had a parcel delivered by DHL, and a few of them have Sky digital (all 3 of these companies are major members of FACT) and so were consulted for home addresses, or something.

Just what constitutes a 'large quantity of counterfeited DVDs' nowadays anyway? 20? 50? 200? Can't have been that many, else they would have given a figure, albeit general (such as the 23,000 in their previous 'statistic'). I'm pretty certain that the FBI tips were not to do with DVDs either, and was more likely in relation to another crime, the credit cards, and weapons. Just what is an 'offensive weapon' anyway, since they've covered guns, and tasers? A brick with a racist comment paint on the side? On a similar note, isn't a group organized by its nature? Anyone ever hear of an 'unorganized crime group?

In Sussex, an organized crime gang with links to Malaysia was found to be selling counterfeit DVDs through websites and newspaper adverts. The case resulted in the main ringleaders being sentenced to up to nine months in prison. The Assets Recovery Agency is now pursuing the criminals under the Proceeds of Crime Act.

Here we go again, with 'organized'. What links to Malaysia, holiday, brother living there, what? You could say that I have links to China and South Korea – I have long time friends spending some time in both those countries. “Links” is such an ambiguous and wide-ranging term, that it's meaningless. Now, these were selling, and advertising the selling, so there should be plenty of evidence. If so, why only 9 MONTHS for the MAIN RINGLEADERS. Let's see, what else gets you 9 months:

• 2 counts of fraudulent trading
• 3 counts of false accounting
• Driving with excess alcohol

These are the typical sorts of offences that get 9 months imprisonment. Heavy stuff eh? How many high profile campaigns are there on bad businesses, or tax avoidance do you remember seeing?

As a result of a 12 month investigation by FACT into forum members on a website, 10 search warrants were issued and nine people arrested. A large quantity of counterfeit DVDs and paedophilia was also seized.

So, they're terrorists, they're 'Johnny-foreigners', they're The Mob, and now all pirates are perverts? Which was the focus of the investigation? The DVDs, or the kiddy porn, or was the kiddy porn on the counterfeited DVDs? Maybe there were copies of Lolita, Blue Lagoon, and Pretty Baby in the list. (side note, Pretty Baby, by FACT member Paramount, features a 12yo Brooke Shields, filmed in various states of undress – at one point, she's wearing only a g-string, and could technically be deemed paedophilia under UK law.(IMDB - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078111/trivia )

Nine people arrested too, eh. That's a lot! But then, I'm a member of a 'forum on a website' – one of the moderators in fact – and after almost 9 days of being open, we have 736 registered members. 9 of those people would be 1.17% of the total users. Lets also put something else into consideration; NINE arrests in TWELVE months. That works out to an average of 40 and a bit days of work PER ARREST. Isn't it good to know they're working so hard, so get these dangerous criminals off the streets? Well, not really. If these were such dangerous, high profile, serious crimes, then it wouldn't have taken them 12 months.

This section is rife with vagueness, speculations, conclusions, and not surprisingly, very few actual statistics or even facts. There's plenty of F.A.C.T. but that's all. Very little is verifiable, because they don't provide any details.