Flat Notes : 15,000 Cassette Tapes Seized as Phony Are Steamrollered

Police brought out a steamroller Thursday to demonstrate how far they were willing to go to crush the local market for counterfeit cassette tapes of Latino artists.

But even the sight of the steamroller squashing 15,000 tapes at a news conference presided over by Police Chief Paul Walters wasn’t enough to deter a Santa Ana man from hopping into a trash truck to see if any of the tapes had survived.

“Apparently, there were a lot of tapes that weren’t getting totally crushed up,” Sgt. David Petko said. “Officer (Bo) Herter saw the man climbing into the back of the refuse truck and saw him start to stuff his pockets with tapes.”

Joe Vasquez, 21, was arrested on suspicion of misdemeanor petty theft, taken to a nearby police substation and later released, police spokeswoman Maureen Thomas said.

Santa Ana police collected the 15,000 tapes from raids in the downtown area over the last year.

The tapes typically sell on the streets and at swap meets for about $2. Walters said the tapes not only cheat the public but also hurt business at local record stores. Anyone caught manufacturing or selling the tapes could face up to six months in jail and a $500 fine, Walters said.

“The magnitude of this problem is amazing,” said Maurice L. Richardson, executive director of the Assn. of Latin-American Record Manufacturers (ALARM), an organization formed to assist the Latino music-recording industry in uncovering counterfeiting and bootlegging.

“People in this part of Santa Ana are really vulnerable to this kind of activity because there is a heavy concentration of Latinos who enjoy this kind of music. The crooks take advantage of them and sell them something that’s inferior,” Richardson said.