A university student pleaded guilty last week to circumventing copyright laws to distribute bootleg software internationally to countries all over the world in the midst of the U.S. Justice Department’s largest investigation into software piracy.

Jeffrey Lerman, a 20-year-old computer science major, faces up to five years in prison after admitting he was a “ripper” for the Kalisto software piracy group, manipulating files of pirated computer games to bypass copyright coding, the United States Attorney’s Office announced Wednesday.

FBI agents raided Lerman’s room at the Kappa Alpha fraternity house in April, where he was a boarder, and confiscated a computer and PlayStation 2. Lerman is now a member and resident of Alpha Sigma Phi.

Alpha Sigma Phi President Andrew Gendreau said the fraternity supports Lerman and would not comment further. Lerman could not be reached for comment.

The case puts a dent in the software pirating community and more prosecution is imminent, U.S. Attorney’s Office spokesman Thomas Carson said, but, “Like the war on drugs, these voids are filled and it starts up again,” Carson said.

Prosecutors dubbed Lerman and two other men in the case as the “Robin Hoods of cyberspace” because they put millions of dollars in video games, movies and software online but made no profit.

The defendants’ motives are most likely the competition and “sport” of the crime in the software piracy underworld, Carson said.

“It’s individuals competing against each other, seeing who can break the code first,” he said.

The convictions are part of Operation Higher Education, the largest part of Operation Fastlink, which former Attorney General John Ashcroft announced April 22, a day after the Lerman raid.

Operation Higher Education focuses on universities because the bandwidth at campuses is useful for piracy, Carson said.

Lerman and the two other men who pleaded guilty played roles in “some of the most notorious online piracy release groups in the world,” the attorney’s office said. These “warez groups” send material to servers and select clientele. From there, pirated works are illegally distributed worldwide on file sharing networks.

Operation Fastlink has led to six convictions in the United States and searches and seizures of 70 suspects in 13 countries.