Sham Recording Ring Broken Up, D.A. Says

Los Angeles has long been the creative and corporate home for much of the music industry. Now it appears that the city has been home to a good portion of the illegitimate side of the business as well.

At a press conference at the Sheraton Universal on Thursday, Los Angeles Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner, representatives of the Arcadia and Glendale police departments and officials of the Recording Industry Assn. of America announced the breakup of what they called the largest audio-cassette counterfeiting operation ever uncovered.

According to Reiner and RIAA attorney Neal Edelson, the Los Angeles-based ring may have accounted for as much as 25% of the estimated $300 million in losses suffered by legitimate record companies last year due to record piracy. Reiner said that Los Angeles has the “dubious reputation as the nation’s center for record piracy,” though he offered no statistics to back up his statement.

Range of Charges

So far, 15 individuals in the Los Angeles area have been charged in connection with the counterfeiting operation, the officials said, with charges ranging from grand theft to violation of California trademark statutes.

That total includes four men who were indicted by a federal grand jury here last week and charged with manufacturing illegal cassettes as well as providing others with manufacturing components such as blank tapes, cassette cartridges and boxes. The federal indictments were announced by U.S. Atty. Robert C. Bonner at a separate press conference last Friday. Bonner estimated that the four individuals were responsible for up to 10% of all record piracy in the United States.

Noted Artists

At the press conference Thursday, RIAA spokesperson Patricia Heimers displayed about a dozen allegedly counterfeit tapes from among the more than 35,000 seized by the Arcadia, Glendale and Bell police departments during a series of raids at eight locations on Sept. 30.

The alleged counterfeits were of albums by such artists as Madonna, Steve Winwood, Willie Nelson, Huey Lewis and the News, Run DMC and the “La Bamba” movie sound track.

“Every title on Billboard magazine’s Top 100 chart was seized,” Heimers said, adding that the authorities had also seized “zillions” of copies of Michael Jackson’s new album “Bad,” which is currently No. 1 on Billboard’s chart.

According to a statement issued by the RIAA, the combined manufacturing capacity of the businesses raided was “approximately 300,000 illegal cassettes per week.”