Operation Buccaneer

Operation Buccaneer is an "ongoing international copyright piracy investigation and prosecution" undertaken by the United States federal government.

An undercover operation began in October 2000. On December 11, 2001, law enforcement agents in six countries targeted 62 people suspected of software piracy, with leads in twenty other countries. U.S. law enforcement agents, led by the United States Customs Service, raided computers in the economics department of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of California, Los Angeles, an "off-campus location" of the University of Oregon, and dorm rooms at Duke University and Purdue University. Information obtained led to a subsequent raid at the Rochester Institute of Technology, described by "warez gadfly 'ttol'" as one of "the two major hubs for communications between pirate groups" (along with the University of Twente). However, the universities themselves were not considered targets of the criminal investigation. Several software companies were also raided.

"The Customs Service said it had singled out DrinkOrDie because it was considered one of most sophisticated of the rings operating within a loose, global network." The DrinkOrDie site, where software could be downloaded for free, was shut down the following day. However, Farhad Manjoo wrote in a Wired magazine article that others were puzzled why the group was targeted; Manjoo characterized them as "small potatoes in the world of software theft", while an anonymous Australian pirate was quoted as saying, "they aren't the first to come to mind when you think to yourself 'whose (sic) the big deal in the scene?'"

Around 70 search warrants were served and 150 computers were seized for analysis. Raids were also conducted in Canada, Britain, Australia, Finland, Norway and Sweden. Other groups investigated in the operation were warez groups such as RiSC, RAZOR1911, RequestToSend (RTS), ShadowRealm (SRM), WeLoveWarez (WLW) and POPZ.

Related law enforcement actions include: Operation Fastlink, Operation Gridlock, Operation D-Elite and Operation Site Down.