Video ring ‘smashed’
NZPA-Reuter Moscow
An underground ring of film copiers produced thousands of illegal video cassettes offering everything from American thrillers to hard-core Swedish pornography, reports a Moscow newspaper.
The daily “Sovietskaya Rossiya” (Soviet Russia) said that the Moscow police had smashed the ring which operated the business last
year and that several people had been jailed or were awaiting trial. Using Western equipment, the group made copies of smuggled Western films and sold them on the flourishing Soviet video black market.
The report said that they had offered such Western classics as “Clockwork Orange,” “The Godfather,” and “Apocalypse Now” as well as horror films and a
range of hard-core pornography which sold for up to ?U5274 a cassette. The group consisted of more than 50 people. They have been charged with purveying pornography, a criminal offence in the Soviet Union.
Video recorders brought in from the West sell privately for thousands of dollars and have become a status symbol for successful Soviet citizens.
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Press, 5 April 1983, Page 6
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165Video ring ‘smashed’ Press, 5 April 1983, Page 6
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