RAND Research Company published a report under the promising title of “Pirate movies, organized crime and terrorism”, in which the authors were trying to trace the connection between these phenomena.

However, the study as it honestly states in the beginning, was carried out with the support of the Motion Picture Association, but the authors immediately brushed off any accusations of partiality, saying that their point of view might not coincide with the one of the customer.
The study itself is based on data obtained from observation of three criminal groups, as the authors honestly admit, they “did not get any evidence of large-scale connection between terrorism and the proliferation of counterfeit movies.”

However, all described mafia groups without exception, from the Italian “Kamorry” to the Japanese “Yamaguchi-gumi” are involved in pirate movie industry.

The second spot - a business associated with counterfeit goods, and the incidence of all other types of criminal activity is slightly lower. However, in most cases, the authors did not provide quantitative characteristics indicating to what extent Mafiosi stamped pirated DVDs.

Another topic reflected in the report is a gradual shift from the usual mafia criminal activities to politics, and the appearance of their political demands, which are in only one step away from terrorism.

In detail, the study examined three mafia groups. First - the Irish Republican Army used the income from piracy activities to finance its existence. Even after the cessation of terrorist activities a part of former fighters continued to engage in ordinary criminal business, including the production of pirated products.

The second case - the Indian “D-Company”, beging with the pirate business, and later became a terrorist group. In addition, the study describes the activities of the Latin American DVD-pirate Assad Ahmad Barakat, who is involved in financing of Hezbollah.

“Given the enormous profit margins, it’s no surprise that organized crime has moved into film piracy,” said Greg Treverton, the report’s lead author and director of the Center for Global Risk and Security at RAND, a nonprofit research organization. “The profits are high and penalties for being caught are relatively low.”

“If you buy pirated DVDs, there is a good chance that at least part of the money will go to organized crime and those proceeds fund more-dangerous criminal activities, possibly terrorism,” Treverton said.

The prevalence of piracy as the report explains is due to high profitability, low risk, as well as the cheapness of the equipment necessary for replication of counterfeit DVDs. As always in these works, it says about the need to toughen punishment for counterfeit and about astronomical loses of right owners.