YouTuber raided by police for reviewing retro gaming handhelds

An Italian YouTuber has been subjected to a police raid for reviewing handheld devices with pre-loaded retro games.

As spotted by Android Authority, Francesco Salicini, who creates content under the name Once Were Nerd, alleged customs enforcement officers from the Guardia di Finanza turned up with a search warrant earlier this year.

After reviewing a number of retro handhelds on his channel, including devices from ANBERNIC, Powkiddy, and TrimUI, Salicini was raided and his 30+ devices seized, along with his personal phone. He also provided full transcripts detailing his interactions with the device manufacturers.

Subsequent reporting by Eurogamer suggests that Salicini has been accused of violating Article 171-ter of the Italian Copyright Law, which carries a maximum fine of around $17,000 and up to three years in prison. Right now, Salicini is awaiting the conclusion of the investigation into him to find out what, if any, charges he may be facing. While paperwork intimates the raid is connected to copyrighted material from Nintendo and Sony, it’s possible the enforcement agency initiated the seizure independently.

“I have never ‘sponsored’ but ‘reviewed’ with the utmost objectivity, citing both Pros and Cons of each device,” Salicini said, via machine translation.

“To date, the Guardia di Finanza, as a precautionary measure, is also proceeding to obscure all my social channels, thus making it impossible for me to continue to bring other content that is not the subject of this investigation.

“Unfortunately this proceeding will almost certainly lead to a trial, I have already had to contact a defense lawyer and you can imagine how many expenses I will have to face to deal with this, in my opinion, injustice, since none of my content (more than 200 videos) violates YouTube’s policies.”

Nintendo is clamping down on piracy and emulation, and recently revised its Account Agreement and Account Privacy Policy to tighten the rules on emulation and piracy. It has also reportedly banned Switch 2 players from using its online services after using the MIG Switch, and taken action against priacy sites like Yuzu, Tropic Haze, and Nsw2u.