Interest
2 Arrested in Japan for Selling 500 Modified Wiis
posted on by Crystalyn Hodgkins
The Fukuoka Prefectural Police arrested two men on Thursday on suspicion of violating trademark law by selling modified Nintendo Wii game consoles. The police arrested both the president of the mail-order company, 32-year-old Tomonori Satō from Tokyo, and his younger brother Takaharu, 28, an employee of the company.
Both men were accused of selling three modified Wii consoles for a total of 90,000 yen (about US$1,100) between December 2010 and February 2011 to three male buyers in Fukuoka Prefecture. The internal programming of the machines had been allegedly changed, violating Nintendo's trademark rights.
According to the Fukuoka Prefectural Police, the modified consoles could play illegal copies of games. The police said that between November 2009 and June 2011, the two men sold 500 modified Wii consoles for a total of 15,000,000 yen ( US$190,000).