DVD and CD Piracy Ring Busted

 
Los Angeles : On December 2, 2004 , Detectives from Organized Crime Vice Division, Piracy Section, served a search warrant at 1644 East 99 th Street . The warrant service was the conclusion of a lengthy investigation and surveillance of suspects who manufactured pirated DVD’s and CD’s and sold them on the street.
Six suspects, three males and three females were arrested at the residence. Juan Perez, 32 years of age, was the ringleader of the operation. He had been manufacturing pirated CD’s for approximately a year and a half and recently added the pirated DVD’s to his list. He manufactured approximately 2500 CD’s and 300 DVD’s and grossed approximately $3,500.00 on a weekly basis. Leonel Sales, 26 years of age, Gracelia Mier, 39 years of age, Teresa Mier, 34 years of age, Santiago Ramirez, 19 years of age and Gloria Martinez, 39 years of age, were arrested for assembling the pirated CD’s and DVD’s and selling them on the street.
The detectives recovered a laboratory used to manufacture and package the pirated products. The suspects had over 18,000 CD’s, 1700 DVD’s, ten towers containing eight position burners on each burner, two laser copiers, a shrink wrap machine, a paper cutter used to cut the inserts, two computers used to record the pirated CD’s and three Rimage CD printers used to imprint graphics onto the CD discs. The value of the pirated CD’s and DVD’s was over $300,000.00.
All six arrestees were booked for Failure to Disclose the Origin of the Trademark of the CD’s and DVD’s. Their bail was set at $25,000.00 each.
For further information contact Lieutenant John Cooney, Officer-in-Charge of Piracy Squad, at 213-473-7655.
his news release was prepared by the Los Angeles Police Department’s Media Relations Section, at 213-485-3586.