Value of Bootleg Cassette Seizure Put at $2.6 Million

Police searching for a robbery suspect accidentally discovered a bootleg cassette factory in Fullerton containing 100,000 counterfeit Latino, country-Western and rap tapes, the largest seizure in Orange County history, authorities said Thursday.

The seizure represented an estimated loss of $2.6 million to the recording industry, police said.

The bootleg operation seized Wednesday may be connected to similar raids conducted last month in Los Angeles County, police said Thursday. Also confiscated were 2,300 original master tapes, labels and other packaging materials and recording equipment valued at $50,000. Officials said the dubbing machines were capable of producing 12 tapes every 90 seconds.

The bootleg operation in Fullerton was discovered by two Los Angeles police detectives who went to Unit J of an industrial complex at 2524 Fender Ave. on Wednesday to serve a search warrant in an unrelated robbery case. The person they were looking for had listed CST Environmental as his work address.

Although CST Environmental had moved away, the bootleg operation hadn’t replaced the name on the door when it moved in about six weeks ago, Fullerton Police Sgt. Glenn Deveney said.

“They (Los Angeles police) saw employees dubbing cassette tapes and recognized it as a pirating operation,” Deveney said, adding that the Fullerton Police Department was then called in to investigate.

Based on interviews with five employees who were detained briefly, investigators said the counterfeit tapes were being manufactured day and night, resulting in the production of about 30,000 cassettes a week. Police said the employees were paid $150 a week.

“This is one of the larger piracy warehouses,” Fullerton Police Detective Joe Caracci said. “It’s one of the more sophisticated ones.”

About 70% of the tapes confiscated in Fullerton were by Latino artists, such as Alex Bueno and Los Mier. The other cassettes included recordings by M.C. Hammer, Milli Vanilli and Willie Nelson.

Such tapes are sold at swap meets at below-market prices, police said.

Police believe that the operation was distributing the tapes nationwide. Caracci said evidence showed some of the tapes were being shipped to El Paso, Tex., with other locations listed on business documents. Some were probably distributed in Los Angeles, Caracci said.

“We have a lot of Mexican-American and Hispanic people (in the Los Angeles area). And like everybody else, they go to swap meets; we go to swap meets, and these tapes are made for the region.”

A recording industry spokeswoman said a raid in Chino on Aug. 28 resulted in the confiscation of tapes and equipment representing a potential annual loss to the industry of $45 million. Police searched two more locations in Ontario the next day, where an additional 20,000 tapes were confiscated. No dollar value was available.

Eight people were charged with violations in those raids, according to Trish Heimors, a spokeswoman for the Recording Industry Assn. of America Inc. The bootleg recordings confiscated were mostly by rap artists, including 2 Live Crew and Stevie B.

Consultants for the association have joined Fullerton police in the investigation.

Caracci said all these bootleg operations could be connected, but he declined to elaborate.

Police said the owner of the Fullerton business operated under three or four names, but they had narrowed it down to one name by Thursday. They also believe that a second “silent partner” was involved.

“We will find the man that leased the office. There’s no problem with that,” Caracci said. “Anybody above and beyond him, I doubt it.”

One nearby business owner said he was surprised by the raid because the suspect earlier had told him that he sold clothes and tennis shoes at swap meets.

“I guess I had an underlying feeling that something was wrong because it was sort of clandestine the way trucks would be coming up and loading little boxes,” said Dan Short, the business owner.

John Fahel, whose family business in the same complex sells wholesale tennis shoes at swap meets, said the suspect telephoned his office Wednesday during the police raid after calling his own business and suspecting something was wrong.

Fahel said they met within the last few weeks--drawn together because they are both Arab nationals--but had not worked together at swap meets.

“We did not know what this guy did,” Fahel said. “We do an honest living.”