Jakarta Police spokesman Sr. Comr. Boy Rafli Amar said the four suspects — YS, Sr, DE and EW — were arrested separately during a series of raids over the past week in the Glodok business district, West Jakarta.

“None of the suspects knew each other, but their activities were interconnected in this illegal business,” Boy said Thursday.  

Police also confiscated a total of 17,000 DVDs and two personal computers used to duplicate the movies.   

One of the computers could produce up to 100 DVDs a day, Boy said.

With around 8.5 million residents, Jakarta has become a haven for pirated DVD and VCD industries.  

Instead of paying at least Rp 50,000 (US$5.40) for an original copy of a movie on DVD or VCD, it is not uncommon for people to spend around one-fifth of this amount to on pirated material.

The arrested retailers confirmed that demand for pirated DVDs was constantly high.   

For example, DE said he sold between 40 and 50 porn DVDs a day.
“Nowadays, most people are looking for porn DVDs starring Asian artists such as Miyabi,” said the father of one who had been in the pirated DVD business since early this year.  

DE said he had bought porn DVDs from a wholesale agent, also in Glodok, for Rp 2,800 per copy. He then sold them to customers for Rp 5,000 each.

However, DE said he had never sold porn movies to minors.

“I would feel guilty if I sold [porn] to them,” he said, smiling.  

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