CiNEDUB raid turns up drugs, money and hard drives

Hungarian authorities raided locations tied to movie piracy group CiNEDUB last week, turning up startling evidence related to its operations. Hidden hard drives, a cocaine-laced snorting mirror, stacks of cash and over a dozen computer towers were among the materials seized by customs organization National Tax and Customs Administration (NAV) and local police. Footage from the raids was released this weekend.

According to piracy news site Torrent Freak, the NAV called CiNEDUB’s set-up Hungary’s “largest pirate server center.” Servers with hundreds of terabytes of pirated material, including 15,000 movies, video games and songs, were seized. In addition to the computer equipment, a shotgun was found in one of the homes.

Two men were reportedly arrested in the operation. Seven others remain at-large.

The raids come after CiNEDUB drew Hollywood’s ire over rampant camcorder recordings of films originating in Hungarian theaters. The straw that broke the camel’s back was when “The Hangover Part II” ended up on piracy sites within days of its theatrical debut. That film’s distributor, Warner Bros., reacted by cutting its distribution deals to the country.

Following the sequel’s release, it ranked #6 in June among the top 10 most pirated films by BitTorrent users. X-Men: First Class topped that chart.

You can check out the footage here. (via Torrent Freak)