What do you think happens when Nintendo finds a container stuffed with illegal NES system clones and built-in games. Stacks of Gameboy multicartridges just waiting to find new owners thinking Nintendo is cool when they're selling them 200 games for the price of 1. Then later complains to Nintendo when their Supercom Super Turbo Mega 16bit 3D Nintendo Entertainment System breaks. Well they of course had to make a statement and hired a bulldozer to run over the counterfeit goods, showing they don't allow such things to be sold. They then call the news crew to tape it all broadcast the damn thing on the 6 o'clock news!

The event took place in Denmark og May 28th, 1997. The pictures on the right are taken from a danish news broadcast at Danmark Radio (DR). Nintendo's agent in Denmark at the time, K.E. Mathiasen, had sued a couple of guys who had imported a lot of illegal NES clones and Gameboy carts. The illegal goods would have had estimated income of 200.000 Danish Kroner, around US$28.000.

Nintendo won the case and hired a bulldozer and invited the media to their campaign against pirate software. There were two different stories about the case, a long story in the 6 o'clock news and a small one in the 9 o'clock evening news. Unfortunately I didn't have a tape in my VCR when the first story aired. It showed viewers a lot of smashed Gameboy multicartridges and other nifty items which could make a fan cry, along with an interview with a guy from the Danish distributor most likely saying they would hunt down anyone trying to sell counterfeit Nintendo products.

As far as I can see the NES clone is the popular Mastergames Supercom 72, sold on a lot of markets in Denmark around 1996, I know - I picked up a few ;)

I have later learnt that pictures from the event are still available at a website called Aarhus Arkivet (Aarhus Archive).
The pictures below are courtesy of Jens Tønnesen + aarhusarkivet.dk and published in accordance with the CC BY 4.0