Chinese man pleads guilty in global software piracy case

A Chinese businessman has pleaded guilty to his role in an international, multimillion dollar software piracy case.

Federal prosecutors say 37-year-old Wen Tao Liu, also known as Orland Liu, pleaded guilty Tuesday in in Kansas City to conspiracy and trafficking in counterfeit labels. Liu, a citizen of China, was arrested in 2016 in Dallas while trying to return to his country.

He is the eighth person to plead guilty in the scheme. Investigators say those involved sold more than $100 million worth of counterfeit, unauthorized software products online to thousands of customers.

The investigation began in Kansas City in 2013 when learned that another man, Casey Lee Ross, bought and redistributed tens of thousands of unauthorized Microsoft product key codes and counterfeit product key cards.

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Citation: Chinese man pleads guilty in global software piracy case (2017, September 20) retrieved 28 March 2024 from https://phys.org/news/2017-09-chinese-guilty-global-software-piracy.html
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