Software police nab top UK chipper

Chippers modify consoles such as Nintendo's Wii to play pirated games

The Entertainment & Leisure Software Publishers Association (Elspa) claims to have captured one of the UK's top game console chippers.

A raid at a house in Stoke-on-Trent in January resulted in the prosecution of a man targeted for being one of the main operators in the UK.

Chippers make money by modifying consoles using 'circumvention devices', or 'chips', to play copied versions of games or other content.

The man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was found with 200 chips, 20 Xbox 360 consoles, four Nintendo Wii consoles and two PCs. All of the goods were seized for forensic examination

The action followed months of investigations by Staffordshire Trading Standards and included several test purchases by Elspa.

One of the purchases involved sending off a regular Xbox 360 to be chipped and another was the purchase of a pre-chipped Wii console.

Plain clothes officers from Staffordshire Trading Standards and members of Staffordshire Police carried out the raid using a warrant drawn up under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

The unnamed man was arrested and taken to a police station in Stoke-on-Trent, before being bailed to appear before Staffordshire Police at a later date.

An investigation under the Proceeds Of Crime Act 2002 has already started to estimate the criminal gain from his illegal activities.

"This raid proves that increasing numbers of games criminals are paying the price for pursuing illegal chipping business activities," said Michael Rawlinson, managing director of Elspa.