The United States Attorney's Office announced today that Alice Wang, 41, of Fremont, Tony Wu, 32, of Hayward, and Ginger Yang, 50, of Chino Hills, California, pled guilty to trafficking in counterfeit computer software before United States District Court Judge Ronald M. Whyte in San Jose.  Defendants Wang and Yang entered their guilty pleas yesterday, while defendant Wu entered his guilty plea on December 4.

The defendants each pled guilty to charges of trafficking in counterfeit computer software products in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2320(a).  In pleading guilty, defendant Chan admitted that she possessed and sold more than $400,000 worth of counterfeit computer software products of Microsoft Corporation and Symantec Corporation as operator of Beyond 2K and N.M. Tech, two software distribution companies.  Defendant Chan admitted that she employed defendant Wu in those operations.  Defendant Yang admitted that she possessed and sold more than $100,000 of counterfeit Microsoft software products.

As part of their plea agreements, defendants Wang and Wu each agreed to forfeit approximately $37,000 of proceeds from their criminal activities, and agreed to pay approximately $93,000 in restitution to Microsoft Corporation.  Defendant Yang agreed to the forfeit approximately $45,000 and to pay full restitution.  Each defendant faces a maximum penalty of 10 years imprisonment and a $2 million fine, although the actual sentences will be determined by the United States Sentencing Guidelines, which take into account a number of factors, and will be imposed in the discretion of the judge.  Sentencing before Judge Whyte is set for the defendants on March 15, 2004 at 9:00 a.m.

The guilty pleas resulted from the "Operation Cyberstorm," a two-year undercover investigation into software piracy and related crimes conducted by agents from Federal Bureau of Investigation, Internal Revenue Service-Criminal Investigations, and REACT Task Force in San Jose, working with the U.S. Attorney's Office's Computer Hacking and Intellectual Property (CHIP) Unit.  Christopher P. Sonderby, Chief of the CHIP Unit, is the Assistant U.S. Attorney who prosecuted the cases.