These people spy, steal and pirate anything they come across.
I wrote a college level textbook on piezoelectric physics a year an a half ago (subject matter is very hard and the book will never be on the best seller list). My publisher has sold about 150 copies, but there are over 1000 pirate copies in circulation (mostly Chinese, but some Indian).
“These people spy, steal and pirate anything they come across.”
A relative works for a company who make industrial sniffers of chemicals. On the circuit board they made a mistake-left a circuit patch like a dead end road but did not hurt anything and more costly to replace all the boards so they left it. It was a clear mistake.
Chinese copied their sniffers right down to the mistake on the circuit board. Probably thought it was for a future purpose planned.
Your experience is all too common, Jack. India in particular has a huge optical character recognition industry, scanning and churning out printed matter night and day regardless of copyright. The finished product is inevitably shot thru with errors. But they’re fast.