Authorities have caught two Ho Chi Minh City-based firms printing more than 15,000 pirated copies of books and 2024 calendars, with a combined weight exceeding 15 metric tons.

Police officers from the Ministry of Public Security and the city, in coordination with inspectors from the municipal Department of Information and Communications on Monday morning raided Kien A Packing Production and Trading Service Company in the city’s outlying Cu Chi District.

The company was caught with 3,000 illegally printed copies of ‘Kinh Truong Tho diet toi’ (Long-life sutra destroys sins) from Ton giao (religion) Publishing House and 9,000 illegally printed copies of ‘Sherlock Holmes’ from the Writers’ Association Publishing House. The combined weight of the books was 10 metric tons.

Authorities had not given their approval for the books to be printed. All of the illegally copies have since been seized.