3-day intensive raids in 124 location  in all 47 regions of Japan? Yup, that’s Japan’s government showing they mean business when it comes to piracy.

Last year in June, an amendment to Japan’s Copyright Law was approved by the government. The new legislation would impose criminal penalties on not only those who upload content, but began to include also people that download content knowingly. Downloaders could face a 2 million yen fine ($21,640) and 2 years in jail. Uploaders on the other hand, were already included and currently have to deal with a 10 million yen fine ($108,202) and up to 10 years in prison if they are caught.

The new legislation took effect in October 2012, a full 5 months before the nationwide raids took place. Of the 27 arrested, one was a 47-year old man who reportedly uploaded  more than 1000 programs online. Another is being accused of uploading around 1,600 episodes of anime online. The applications used by those arrested to download and upload content are called “Share” and “Perfect Dark.” Some of the hardware seized during the raids is pictured in the image above.

So remember kids, don’t illegally pirate content when in Japan! They’re not messing around over there.

[via Nikkei, TorrentFreak, The Verge]