Operation Site Down - Similarities To The Scene Miniseries

Similarities To The Scene Miniseries

An online film series titled The Scene is a fictional take on the actual piracy scene. Some claims have been made that there are coincidences between the series and actual events.

The main character is Brian Sandro, an NYU student, who also pirates Hollywood movies in his spare time. Sandro heads the movie release group, CPX.

In episode nine, released in the beginning of June 2005, Sandro, whose IRC alias is Drosan, is messaged by a member named Gryffin. Gryffin was earlier looking for members of CPX in a different IRC channel. Gryffin's friend's father apparently works at a film studio and Gryffin is asking to be a supplier to CPX. The Gryffin character in the scene comes off as a little mysterious, but otherwise harmless.

However, it was pointed out that his name is similar to the nickname of the actual lead FBI agent, Griffen, responsible for the busts in Operation Site Down. Also, in the messaging session between Drosan and Gryffin, the music playing in the background periodically says "He works for the FBI" in a trancelike fashion.

Jun Productions, the creators of The Scene, deny all accounts that they had insider information about the arrests and that the similarities are only coincidences.

However, according to a Slyck posting, Gryffin the character and Griffen the FBI agent shared the same BNC the.yankees-suck.net. The vhost resolves to Hurricane Electric, which is the location of the two Fed topsites: CHUD and LAD.

Furthermore, Bruce Forrest, who was quoted in a Wired article as a self-proclaimed "double agent", was an active correspondent for The Scene series. While Jun Productions claim that Forrest had no involvement in the ninth episode (he supposedly left on his own terms after the eighth episode), some speculate that it could have been an elaborate warning by Forrest about the impending Federal arrests.