The suspects were also allegedly involved in producing pirate copies of Mama Jack, another hit South African film, said the Sunday Times.

Reportedly key members of a suspected syndicate, they will face charges of fraud, theft and corruption in the Johannesburg Magistrate's Court on Monday.

A three-month investigation leads to the arrest last week, as all evidence pointed to two members of the editing team of both movies, James Lennox, chief executive of the South African Federation Against Copyright Theft(SAFACT), told the newspaper.

Both worked at Video Lab, a Johannesburg company that has edited more than 30 South African films including Tsotsi, until they resigned late last year.

Fake DVDs featuring local hits and Hollywood productions such as Big Momma 2 could be easily found on some Johannesburg streets. They were estimated to cost South Africa's fledgling but internationally-acclaimed film industry 850 million rand(135 million U.S. dollars) a year.

Tsotsi, winning a Best Foreign Language Film Oscar last month, tells a story of a young Johannesburg thug who faces moral dilemmas after inadvertently kidnapping a baby during a hijacking. Enditem

Editor:

Nie Peng