Danish Anti-Piracy Lawyers Jailed For Real, Actual Stealing From Copyright Holders

Furnished content.


There's an old saying: once is an accident, twice is a coincidence, and three times is a trend. It seems now we are officially in the coincidence part of that mantra. You will recall that we recently discussed famed author Chuck Palahniuk's apology for blaming piracy for his stagnant finances when the real story was that a business partner at his literary agency was simply stealing money from him. We noted at the time that this business partner was the one feeding Palahniuk the false story that piracy was responsible for his dwindling money and that such a story was made believable in part because of the efforts of the copyright industry and its lawyers demonizing the internet and copyright infringement at every turn.Well, recent news reports detail the sentencing of three Danish lawyers to years in prison for defrauding their copyright holder clients, while supposedly working for them on anti-piracy efforts. The organization now known as Rights Alliance, previously Antipiratgruppen, had hired lawyers from the Johan Schluter law firm for representation in piracy cases. The firm worked on these efforts for Rights Alliance for years before an audit showed just how shady these beacons of justice for rightsholders actually were.

Following an investigation into the company’s accounts by auditing company Deloitte, financial irregularities amounting to millions of dollars were reported in the media during 2015. The Johan Schlüter law firm should have been distributing huge sums to movie and TV industry associations and their underlying rightsholders but its three partners – Johan Schlüter himself, Lars Halgreen and Susanne Fryland – had been lining their own pockets instead. Massive sums were siphoned away from their clients.Yesterday, after more than 20 hearings during which the defendants maintained their innocence (with Schlüter and Halgreen painting themselves as victims of Fryland’s actions), all three were found guilty of fraud and false accounting to the tune of 100 million Danish kroner (US$15.83m).

It transpired that in addition to being a partner in the law firm, Susanne Fryland was also a director of a subsidiary company which was responsible for managing registration, collection and administration rights for various film and TV associations. The prosecutor presented an email sent by Fryland to the account manager at the subsidiary noting that Johan Schlüter in Copenhagen was “screaming for liquidity”. When asked who was screaming, Fryland pointed the finger at Schlüter and Halgreen.“When they looked at liquidity in Copenhagen, did Susanne Fryland print an invoice to an association?” the prosecutor asked.“Yes,” Fryland confirmed.

0 comments, click here to add the first

CBP Agrees To Hand Back Almost All Of The $58,000 It Stole From A 64-Year-Old Man At A Cleveland Airport

Furnished content.


A 64-year-old man, an Albanian with legal US citizenship, was stripped of more than $58,000 in cash by Customs and Border Protection at Cleveland's Hopkins Airport last year. Rustem Kazazi was headed to Albania with the cash to fix up his family's old home and possibly buy property there. The CBP claims... well, it really claims nothing, other than its right to Kazazi's life savings.CBP agents thought it was suspicious Kazazi would have so much cash on hand, despite Kazazi also carrying with him documentation of the cash's origin. That didn't slow the CBP's cash-hauling efforts at all. Asset forfeiture allowed the CBP to take Kazazi's money, say something ominous about violating federal law by not reporting the funds, and never bother charging Kazazi for all the violations the CBP claimed it spotted.It is illegal to take more than $10,000 in funds out of the country without reporting it. The problem is there's nothing in airports suggesting this is the case. Literature at airports, as well as information posted at the TSA's own website, do little to clarify what must be done if you plan to take money out of the country. Even if you do know what needs to be done, it's almost impossible to do before boarding a flight. The funds must be reported at the time of the departure. But they must be reported to a customs office, which is rarely conveniently located on airport property and very definitely never in the terminal.What's more, Kazazi was apparently planning to follow the law. According to his lawyer, he was going to fill out the forms at the "point of departure," which he assumed would be the Newark, NJ airport where his flight leaving the country would depart from.Kazazi's money was spotted by a TSA agent, who immediately reported it to CBP officers. This is something the CBP and DEA strongly encourage, skewing the focus from airline security (which is part of TSA's name) to scanning for dollars. The CBP agents made sure the whole experience was as awful as possible for Kazazi (whose command of the English language is limited) even before they walked off with his money.

"They asked me some questions, which I could not understand as they spoke too quickly," according to Kazazi's declaration. "I asked them for an interpreter and asked to call my family, but they denied my request."The CBP agents led Kazazi to a small windowless room and conducted multiple searches of him and his belongings, he said. According to Kazazi's declaration, the agents asked him to remove all of his clothing and gave him a blanket to cover the lower portion of his body. Kazazi said that a man wearing rubber gloves then "started searching different areas of my body."

In a statement, a CBP spokesman said that "pursuant to an administrative search of Mr. Kazazi and his bags, TSA agents discovered artfully concealed U.S. currency. Mr. Kazazi provided inconsistent statements regarding the currency, had no verifiable source of income and possessed evidence of structuring activity," that is, making cash withdrawals of less than $10,000 to avoid reporting requirements.

The minutes of the proceeding says that customs officials told the judge that "they were beginning the process of tendering a check to Petitioner Kazazi in the amount of $57,330 plus interest."

0 comments, click here to add the first