Razor 1911 - Members Raided

Members Raided

In 2001, two members of Razor 1911 were raided as part of international anti-piracy co-op Operation Buccaneer, led by the United States Customs Service.

• Shane E. Pitman age 31, of Conover, North Carolina a leader of Razor 1911 who went by the pseudonym "Pitbull", was sentenced to 18 months in prison "for conspiring to violate copyright laws" as part of Operation Buccaneer.

• Sean Michael Breen age 38, of Richmond, California, a member of Razor 1911 since the early 1990s pleaded guilty in July 2003 to two counts of copyright infringement in violation of Title 17, United States Code, Section 506(a) and Title 18, United States Code, Section 2319, and to three counts of mail fraud in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 1341. He was sentenced February 10, 2004 to 50 months in prison and three years of supervised release, for violating the criminal copyright laws, and for defrauding Cisco Systems of hundreds of thousands of dollars of hardware. Mr. Breen was also ordered to pay restitution of $690,236.91 to Cisco Systems. Mr. Breen's 50-month sentence is the longest imposed to date of the more than 40 individuals worldwide targeted by Operation Buccaneer. In a separate investigation by agents from the United States Secret Service, Mr. Breen also admitted that he had illegally used an online customer account of Cisco Systems to order hundreds of thousands of dollars of hardware by falsely posing as one of Cisco's existing customers. Mr. Breen arranged to have the hardware delivered in separate shipments via Federal Express to "Comptel Logistics," a shell company that had been created for the sole purpose of receiving the fraudulently obtained hardware. Mr. Breen and his business partner rented a storefront in Oakland to act as a business location for Comptel Logistics and to receive the hardware. After receiving the hardware, Mr. Breen sold it on the black market at a heavily discounted price.

Immediately after the raid, Razor 1911 ceased activity for a short period of time. They released Atari Revival: Warlords 3D on May 1, 2002, 6 months after the bust and continued to release games on a regular basis until June 22, 2004. Razor's response to Operation Buccaneer shows that the busts only affected people alleged to be active members of the group by the FBI. In reality those who were busted had been ex-members for several years. Unlike most groups, Razor 1911 was not directly affected by Operation Fastlink in 2004, as Razor were still releasing games on a regular basis during the following months.