In 2009, there were 138 cases of kidnapping for ransom cases reported in the Philippines.

In 2008, there were 135 cases reported.

The ransom payments demanded fell between the range of $11,000 to $44,000 (500,000 to 2 Million Philippine Peso).

Source:  Alexis Romero, “Kidnapping cases up in 2009 – risk consultancy,” Philippine Star, August 20, 2010.

An estimated 600 million pirated DVDs are sold in India each year.

20 million legal, licensed copies of movies are sold each year.

Source:  “Piracy causes $1 bn loss to Indian entertainment industry,” Economic Times, August 21, 2010.

9 percent of all illegally recordings of movies with a camcorder can be traced back to South East Asia, with a majority of the films being pirated in the Philippines.

Source:  Nickie Wang, “Intensifying campaign against film piracy,” Manila Standard Today, August 17, 2010.

The Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) reported that 2,600 women who were working in UK brothers are confirmed human trafficking victims. Another 9,200 women were considered to be vulnerable and may have been trafficked, but were unable to fully confirm their status.

Of the estimated 30,000 women working in brothels in the United Kingdom, 17,000 were found to have been migrants from foreign countries.

Of the 2,600 confirmed trafficking victims, 2,200 were from Asia with a majority coming from China.

Source:  Michael Holden, “UK says 2,600 women trafficked to brothels,” Reuters, August 18, 2010.

In Zhongguancun, known as China’s Silicon Valley, more than half of all GPS maps sold are believed to be pirated.

An authentic GPS using licensed data costs about $88, while a GPS using pirated data can be sold for $44.

Source:  Zhang Hui, “More than half of GPS maps pirated,” Global Times, August 12, 2010.

An estimated 3,400 tons of wildlife is consumed each year in Vietnam.

Source:  “Talking with officials, businesses about wildlife meats,” VietNamNet Bridge, August 13, 2010.

In 2009, 90 million methamphetamine tablets were seized across Thailand, Burma and China in 2009.

In 2007, 30 million were seized across the three countries.

Source: Zoe Daniel, “Illegal drug shipments flood Thai border,” ABC News (Australia), August 13, 2010.

In the first half of 2010, Cambodian authorities reported uncovering 1,772 incidents of illegal fishing in the country.

The authorities seized 321,000 meters of fishing nets and 140 fishing and crab nets.

Source: Khouth Sophakchakrya, “Fisheries busts rise 300pc this year,” Phom Penh Post, August 5, 2010.

In the first half of 2010, the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority of Singapore handled 13,300 cases of cigarette smuggling, an increase of 62 percent from the 8,200 cases handled in the first half of 2009.

Despite the larger case load, the number of cigarette packs seized to 699,000 compared to 734,000 cigarette packs seized in the first half of 2009.

Source:  Victoria Barker, “Smuggling rises to 7-year high,” Asia One, August 6, 2010.

The Bangladesh Government reported that there were 1,311 women and children who were officially identified as victims of human trafficking in Bangladesh between 2004 to 2010.

The figure is broken down by 730 women and 581 children.

NGO representatives dispute the number, stating that there were much more human trafficking victims than officially reported.

Source: “Human trafficking up, not down: seminar told,” bdnews24.com, August 2, 2010.