Chinese counterfeit hard drive ring busted

Chinese police have seized more than 210,000 hard drives produced by a counterfeit ring that sold them as brand-name items, including Hewlett Packard and IBM products, reports the Xinhua news agency.

Police arrested 56 suspects at two factories and four offices in the cities of Nanjing, Beijing, Chongqing and Guangzhou involved in the production and sale of the fakes, it says. The investigation into the scam was started after a complaint from HP.

Xinhua notes that the ring would buy up used and discarded drives, wipe and repackage them and then sell them on as genuine components. It is reported that the operation employed hundreds of workers.