Australia’s biggest piracy racket worth $21m

HE WAS her church pastor and controller, she was his “disciple” and called him “father” and together they pulled off Australia’s largest piracy fraud worth $21 million.
Mosaic Defredes, 40, a minister at the Blacktown Christian City Church and his “daughter” Allison Daniel, 32, operated an international counterfeit DVD empire from western Sydney.
Hidden-in-plain-sight inside suburban Sydney storage units over several years, the pair ran one of Australia’s most sophisticated criminal rackets.
Using the online accounts “Giftotorium” and “mad.dvd.dealz” on eBay, Daniel and Defredes sold more than 65,000 DVDS they stole or had made in China.
The Australian Screen Association estimates the DVDs equated $21m in retails sales on top of the $1.6 mi

Australia’s biggest piracy racket worth $21m

Yes, that is correct. Australia's largest piracy racket ever found has just been busted.

But this is no ordinary backyard Ned Kelly kind of piracy ring. This is a Sydney Church Pastor and his daughter. Yep, 'Praise Jesus, pass the donation plate and pirate a DVD' was the catch phrase at this church.

It all kinda makes me scratch my head and wonder why on earth Trump wants to give wholesale freedom for religion to discriminate when the worst of people are often sitting on a pew on Sunday then committing crime on a Monday. (Not that all Christians are like this of course though)

Poonaroontang.

2nd

Same as the first

Who the hell still buys dvds?

People still pay for pirated movies?

originally posted by: markosity1973

HE WAS her church pastor and controller, she was his “disciple” and called him “father” and together they pulled off Australia’s largest piracy fraud worth $21 million.
Mosaic Defredes, 40, a minister at the Blacktown Christian City Church and his “daughter” Allison Daniel, 32, operated an international counterfeit DVD empire from western Sydney.
Hidden-in-plain-sight inside suburban Sydney storage units over several years, the pair ran one of Australia’s most sophisticated criminal rackets.
Using the online accounts “Giftotorium” and “mad.dvd.dealz” on eBay, Daniel and Defredes sold more than 65,000 DVDS they stole or had made in China.
The Australian Screen Association estimates the DVDs equated $21m in retails sales on top of the $1.6 mi

It all kinda makes me scratch my head and wonder why on earth Trump wants to give wholesale freedom for religion to discriminate when the worst of people are often sitting on a pew on Sunday then committing crime on a Monday. (Not that all Christians are like this of course though)

What does Trump have to do with this? How many churches run criminal scams in their basements? Will Trump's policies suddenly cause a crime wave by churches? It's not a Trump issue, guy. You're obsessed. Give it a rest.

Aw man, i hope they'll reimburse me, my copy of "The nuns luv dildos 2" had scratches

originally posted by: TheMasterOne
Aw man, i hope they'll reimburse me, my copy of "The nuns luv dildos 2" had scratches

Sorry about that, it had a good run though

originally posted by: muSSang
Who the hell still buys dvds?

Lolz,

I thought the same. Quite a few people apparently. $21,000,000 worth in fact.

originally posted by: schuyler

What does Trump have to do with this? How many churches run criminal scams in their basements? Will Trump's policies suddenly cause a crime wave by churches? It's not a Trump issue, guy. You're obsessed. Give it a rest.

#Triggered

Some of history's biggest con men have graced the pulpits of the world. Giving such people access to political power is not a good thing.

Like 10-15 years ago now, I was at this strip mall in the more colored side of the city, and brotha man pulls up in the middle of the joint along side the main sidewalk along the building in his big hoopty...

A couple few kids maybe 10 years old jump out and start working everyone on the sidewalks, and he's parked right in the middle of everything working back there with his huge trunk open. The kids they had I'm not sure what you call them but like what maybe the hotdog guy at the baseball game would have, a sort of box platform job with the strap that goes around the neck to hold it up, with their hottest movie offerings. Those kids were hustlin'!! They had the latest movies at the theaters, obviously bitorrent kind of fare, but it was actually pretty impressive they had taken the movie posters and had made up proper full wrap around color sleeves for the dvd cases not unlike a proper dvd. Dude had the trunk loaded down of course. I had the impression someone in town was mass producing the stuff whether or not it was that guy.

originally posted by: markosity1973

originally posted by: schuyler

What does Trump have to do with this? How many churches run criminal scams in their basements? Will Trump's policies suddenly cause a crime wave by churches? It's not a Trump issue, guy. You're obsessed. Give it a rest.

#Triggered

Some of history's biggest con men have graced the pulpits of the world. Giving such people access to political power is not a good thing.

Come on man, I am almost certain you are smarter and better than that. But beyond your logical fallacy, the guy sold pirated DVD, you act like he killed a bunch of people or something. I wouldn't even suggest he can't continue his day job as far as I am concerned. The matters are unrelated.

originally posted by: sputniksteve

originally posted by: markosity1973

originally posted by: schuyler

What does Trump have to do with this? How many churches run criminal scams in their basements? Will Trump's policies suddenly cause a crime wave by churches? It's not a Trump issue, guy. You're obsessed. Give it a rest.

#Triggered

Some of history's biggest con men have graced the pulpits of the world. Giving such people access to political power is not a good thing.

Come on man, I am almost certain you are smarter and better than that. But beyond your logical fallacy, the guy sold pirated DVD, you act like he killed a bunch of people or something. I wouldn't even suggest he can't continue his day job as far as I am concerned. The matters are unrelated.

#1 His crime makes him a white collar criminal. Just because nobody died, it does not make what he did less wrong. The DVDs were being sold as 'new in box' copies from what I understand. He was deceiving the customers as well as infringing copyrights.

#2 People expect more of leaders. Whether they are religious or not. If he cannot be trusted on that issue, what else has he lied about?

#3 Christianity (and other religions I might add) are brimming with scandal. This Christian website even admits to it

www.christianitytoday.com...

#4 What if the Pastor was guilty of conning grannies out of their life savings? Or Sexual misconduct? Or pedophilia? Where do we draw the line with letting someone continue in a job that is meant to be all about helping people better themselves spiritually?

#5 Why would we give more power to the above people? Why would we let them discriminate in the name of religion against their fellow countrymen? There is a very good reason why we maintain separation of Church and state. And it is not to keep religion oppressed. It's to stop things like the Caliphate of ISIS from happening. Religion can do whatever as long as it is lawful, but it must be answerable to the state like every other organisation.

#6 While this example might be from Australia, there are no shortage of similar examples of religious leaders going rogue in the USA either. The connection I have made is simply that this is what religious rogues do. Therefore why should we let them start discriminating. They are far from perfect themselves.

a reply to: markosity1973

See there we go, no need to involve Trump. Now back to being furious at someone pirating DVD's while employed by Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Of all the things they could have been doing, I am not bothered by this in the slightest. Not sure what else to tell you.

a reply to: sputniksteve

Personally, I would agree that it seems like a petty crime.

But from being raised within a Church, I also know that it is taught that sin is sin is sin. Therefore it is a big deal. Because the Pastor, whom people expect to be above such things is deceiving everyone.

As for the Trump thing, I am just pointing out that the USA has a draft bill that will allow religious people to discriminate against things like abortion, homosexuality, etc etc by allowing people to act on their religious conscience. And I am saying why would he do such a thing when Christianity is far from lily white itself? It seems like a very hypocritical thing to do when we have people like Mr DVD pirate having a wonderful time making millions whilst telling his congregations that gay marriage is an abomination.

a reply to: markosity1973

You can't legislate stupidity Mark. Nobody is above being human regardless of their job or title. That isn't to say we don't ask people in positions of power and influence to strive to be better, but we know better than to be disappointed and surprised when they turn out to be human beings in the end.

Pinning all of the worlds problems with religion on 1 guy is not going to help anyone, anytime.

originally posted by: sputniksteve
a reply to: markosity1973
Pinning all of the worlds problems with religion on 1 guy is not going to help anyone, anytime.

How do you take that away from what I am saying?

I am simply stating that we have separation of religion and state for very good reason. Here is one such example.

a reply to: markosity1973

What? How does separation of Church and State factor in to a religious guy selling pirated DVDs? This has nothing to do with politics dude, and all to do with being a human. What is that example you mention?

I took that out of what you are saying because you injected Trump into a topic that has nothing to do with politics, and are using it to criticize an American politician over something you "think" may happen. To boot all in regards to something that happened in Australia.

Have a good night Markosity.

i say people will almost always pay for sonething they believe has value. If people dont want to pay for the garbage hollywoods spewing out these days it says sonething about the quality of the product. Piracy is as much hollywoods fault as the peopke actually pirating

a reply to: sputniksteve

Ahh, you did not get the point of the OP.

Perhaps let me explain again.

Trump has a draft bill in the United States that will allow people to discriminate freely based upon religious belief. It will also repeal laws that have stopped Christian groups from lobbying and pushing political candidates through.

The connection between the two is I am pointing out one example of what religious people do (yes, from Australia, not USA only because it popped up in my newsfeed and made me think about this Executive Order that Trump is considering)

The point I am trying to make is that these religious types (ones in leadership more than the average parishioner I might add) are often less than savoury characters. So why would we give greater power to them?

I could also reference the Vatican and say how many terrible things it has done over time. Or I could reference Robert Tilton, a world famous charismatic Televangelist who fell from grace in the 1990's when it was revealed he was making over $80,000,000 per year, living in absolute opulence all the while taking donations from his victims and simply tossing their prayer requests into a dumpster. There are so many American examples I could reference it is not funny. The Aussie guy is just the latest in a long line of misbehaving ministers.

Please stop focusing on the Australian story. It is just one example that links to a different topic.

a reply to: markosity1973

Sell a bootleg DVD, or blow up a bus of people. You're right, clearly these piracy pastors are the worst of the worst.