Nintendo Counterfeiter Charged With Seven Counts of Fraud

Sarah LeBoeuf

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Nintendo Counterfeiter Charged With Seven Counts of Fraud



After making over $962,000 on counterfeit Nintendo games, a UK man now faces jail time.

They say that crime doesn't pay, but really, that's only true if you get caught. For Justin Success Brooks of the United Kingdom, his crime of selling counterfeit Nintendo games made him nearly a million dollars. Unfortunately for Brooks, his middle name proved inaccurate, and he's now facing multiple counts of fraud and jail time.

Brooks netted £600,000, which comes out to over $962,000, from selling thousands of counterfeit Wii, DS, and DSi cartridges between 2009 and 2011. He was busted after an investigation by Nintendo and the UK Interactive Entertainment Association in which investigators purchased counterfeit games from suspicious websites, which eventually led them to Brooks. He's been charged with seven counts of fraud, according to the Croydon Guardian: "two counts of fraudulent trading, two counts of supplying an article to use in fraud, two counts of unauthorized possession of goods bearing a trademark, and one count of unauthorized use of a trademark."

Brooks has plead guilty to all of the counts, and he's now awaiting his sentencing while out on bail. It's unclear just how long he could be in jail after his sentencing, but the judge who granted him bail told him, "This is clearly a serious matter and this is not giving any promise of anything other than custody if that is what the sentencing judge decides." Brooks' fate will be discovered when his sentencing takes place on November 9.

Source: Joystiq [http://www.croydonguardian.co.uk/news/9995458.Counterfeit_Nintendo_games_seller_estimated_to_have_made_about___600_000/]

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Zombie_Moogle

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Dec 25, 2008
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If you're gonna sell fake Nintendo's, why not just sell them as "nintendo compatible" consoles or something? They do that with retro games all the time
I bet that'd sell, if they were cheaper.
Just seems like a lot of avoidable risk to me
 

gigastar

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Sep 13, 2010
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Zombie_Moogle said:
If you're gonna sell fake Nintendo's, why not just sell them as "nintendo compatible" consoles or something? They do that with retro games all the time
I bet that'd sell, if they were cheaper.
Just seems like a lot of avoidable risk to me
No, because Nintendo already sues people who make unauthorised 3rd party hardware for thier consoles.
 

Zombie_Moogle

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gigastar said:
Zombie_Moogle said:
If you're gonna sell fake Nintendo's, why not just sell them as "nintendo compatible" consoles or something? They do that with retro games all the time
I bet that'd sell, if they were cheaper.
Just seems like a lot of avoidable risk to me
No, because Nintendo already sues people who make unauthorised 3rd party hardware for thier consoles.
Right, but has anyone just tried making a whole new console that is compatible with Nintendo games? If this guy can make counterfeits, it's obviously possible
 

gigastar

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Sep 13, 2010
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Zombie_Moogle said:
gigastar said:
Zombie_Moogle said:
If you're gonna sell fake Nintendo's, why not just sell them as "nintendo compatible" consoles or something? They do that with retro games all the time
I bet that'd sell, if they were cheaper.
Just seems like a lot of avoidable risk to me
No, because Nintendo already sues people who make unauthorised 3rd party hardware for thier consoles.
Right, but has anyone just tried making a whole new console that is compatible with Nintendo games? If this guy can make counterfeits, it's obviously possible
Not to my knowledge, but i know that several old Nintendo GBA games have been converted to work on PC by 3rd parties.

Not sure what Nintendo take is on this, for one thing GBA games are impossible to come by nowadays and Nintendo cant make money from nothing, on the other hand people hypothetically could be making money off of Nintendo games.
 

Sonic Doctor

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Jan 9, 2010
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I don't think Mr.Brooks methods embodied the true spirit of his middle name. I think Justin Failure Brooks is more like it.
 

Roxas1359

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Aug 8, 2009
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At least he admitted he was guilty. That being said you'd think people would know by now not to steal or try to screw over Nintendo. Their lawyers are scary and probably the best there are. Hell I've only ever heard of Nintendo losing a few case; those cases were the Mario Party case with messed up hands due to N64 control stick spinning, and the Virtual Boy case.
 

NLS

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Jan 7, 2010
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Zombie_Moogle said:
gigastar said:
Zombie_Moogle said:
If you're gonna sell fake Nintendo's, why not just sell them as "nintendo compatible" consoles or something? They do that with retro games all the time
I bet that'd sell, if they were cheaper.
Just seems like a lot of avoidable risk to me
No, because Nintendo already sues people who make unauthorised 3rd party hardware for thier consoles.
Right, but has anyone just tried making a whole new console that is compatible with Nintendo games? If this guy can make counterfeits, it's obviously possible
You can use an Everdrive to connect your cartridges to your PC, and then play them using an emulator. There have also been made third party machines that are compatible with the old nintendo machines. It's a moral gray area.

However, this case is about the sale of pirate copied games. Which is in all cases illegal.
 

gardian06

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kburns10 said:
Baresark said:
At least he took it like a man.
Yeah no fighting on his end. Guess he knew he was in trouble at that point.
it's actually more likely that Nintendo was threatening to add court costs if he didn't plead guilty, and that he knew that he had no chance to prove innocence, so he just plead guilty
 

kburns10

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Sep 10, 2012
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gardian06 said:
kburns10 said:
Baresark said:
At least he took it like a man.
Yeah no fighting on his end. Guess he knew he was in trouble at that point.
it's actually more likely that Nintendo was threatening to add court costs if he didn't plead guilty, and that he knew that he had no chance to prove innocence, so he just plead guilty
That sounds pretty likely actually. Moral of the story: Don't mess with Nintendo!
 

Some_weirdGuy

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Nov 25, 2010
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Zombie_Moogle said:
Right, but has anyone just tried making a whole new console that is compatible with Nintendo games? If this guy can make counterfeits, it's obviously possible
You don't seriously think Nintendo(or any company for that matter) would be ok with someone else profiteering of their products like that do you?

The fact that no consoles do this already should be indication enough that it's definitely not allowed ;), but to answer your question directly:


No, because massive lawsuits hurt.
 

likalaruku

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Nov 29, 2008
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& here I thought this would be about one of those Popstation fakes from China Ashens always reviews.
 

Zombie_Moogle

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Some_weirdGuy said:
Zombie_Moogle said:
Right, but has anyone just tried making a whole new console that is compatible with Nintendo games? If this guy can make counterfeits, it's obviously possible
You don't seriously think Nintendo(or any company for that matter) would be ok with someone else profiteering of their products like that do you?

The fact that no consoles do this already should be indication enough that it's definitely not allowed ;), but to answer your question directly:


No, because massive lawsuits hurt.

As most companies sell the consoles at a loss, I don't know that they would be that bothered. You'd still have to buy the games & they'd still make their intended profit from that