We’re guessing the government has quarterly quotas for number of sites pushing pirated movies it shuts down, because on the last day of June the feds swooped in and shivered the timbers of several sites that had been allowing cheapos to not spend $12 to see Jonah Hex and other fine Hollywood offerings.

Yesterday, authorities seized domain names from nine websites, including TVShack.net, PlanetMoviez.com and ThePirateCity.org and Ninjavideo.net, all of which they believe engaged in the “criminal theft of American movies and television.”

They also went after the money, seizing assets from bank, investment and advertising accounts.

For some reason, it took 100 agents working in 11 states and the Netherlands to bring down these sites.

Funny… all my movie-downloading friends have had to do to find one of these sites was to use Google.

Because the biggest law enforcement concern of our federal government should be making sure that Disney can still pay hack writers $1,500/day to punch up scripts to straight-to-video Alladin sequels, the White House recently launch the pun-tastically titled “Operation in Our Sites,” which really, really wishes you would stop downloading movies for free.

In an effort to make himself sound like a real badass lawyer you might see in a movie or TV show, the U.S. Attorney for NY’s Southern District dropped this memorable quote:

If your business model is piracy, your story will not have a happy ending.

Feds crack down on Internet movie pirates, score bust [L.A. Times]

Want more consumer news? Visit our parent organization, Consumer Reports, for the latest on scams, recalls, and other consumer issues.