4 Charged With Counterfeiting Thousands of Cassettes

Four men were indicted Friday in Los Angeles on charges of operating an audio cassette counterfeit ring that federal officials said was responsible for up to 10% of all record piracy in the United States.

The operation, believed responsible for losses of as much as $32 million to the record industry last year, has turned out tens of thousands of illegal cassette albums for sales at flea markets and other outlets across the country, prosecutors alleged.

“In terms of the volume of pirated tapes and the production of counterfeit labels and imprints, this is plainly the most massive theft of intellectual property ever prosecuted in Southern California,” U. S. Atty. Robert C. Bonner said at a Los Angeles press conference.

“The losses to the recording industry, including artists and record companies, are in the millions of dollars,” Bonner said.

Cassettes Seized

Named in the three federal grand jury indictments were Krikor Avak Avakian, who allegedly supplied blank tape and record catalogues through his two Van Nuys audio businesses, and Rosendo Villasenor Galvan, Rosendo Villasenor Fregoso and Roberto Fonseca, accused of producing counterfeit cassette tapes at recording factories in Los Angeles and Ontario.

Counterfeit cassettes seized by federal agents in a series of raids that began last fall covered a wide range of top recording artists, including Cyndi Lauper, Kenny Rogers, The Fabulous Thunderbirds and Van Halen.

Most of the bogus tapes, which appear nearly identical to legitimate products but have an inferior sound quality, were sold for about $3 each to retail buyers at a variety of outlets as far east as Chicago, Bonner said.

Federal authorities believe the operators of the ring were earning as much as $1 million each through the counterfeit tape sales, while costing the legitimate record industry millions in lost sales.

“We estimate the industry loses about $300 million a year because of record piracy,” said Patricia A. Heimers, spokeswoman for the Recording Industry Assn. of America, a trade organization that participated in the Los Angeles investigation.

In a separate action on Wednesday, police in Glendale and Arcadia arrested seven suspects on charges of conspiracy and manufacturing and selling counterfeit audio cassette tapes.

FBI searches of record factories operated by the ring produced more than 800,000 empty cassette boxes, 78,000 labeled counterfeit cassettes and more than 500,000 counterfeit labels, Bonner said.

According to the indictment, Avakian, 42, of Van Nuys, maintained a catalogue of more than 2,000 English and Latin music titles at his two businesses, Tough Sound Manufacturing and Press Masters.

Avakian allegedly provided the other defendants with blank cassettes containing the appropriate amount of tape for each album to be recorded, some of them stamped with the name of the album to be counterfeited.

Avakian, a Lebanese national, and Fonseca, 55, of Los Angeles, were arrested Thursday on a criminal complaint and released on $25,000 bond. The Villasenors, a father and son from Ontario, were still at large Friday afternoon.