L.A. Police Arrest 4 on Piracy Charges
Los Angeles police early Thursday arrested four men who allegedly produced 5,000 illegal copies of movies, marking one of the city's biggest crackdowns on piracy to date.
The arrests were announced by Police Chief William J. Bratton at a news conference at the Grove shopping plaza, a few yards from the multiplex where police officers earlier this month made their first arrest under a new law banning videotaping inside movie theaters.
Attended by top city officials, studio executives and labor union representatives, the news conference was designed as a high-profile show of force in the film industry's efforts to battle the global piracy problem it claimed siphoned more than $3 billion a year from its coffers.
"There's an industry that's involved here in this illegal activity," Bratton said. "We are focusing not just on the element of filming, but production and distribution."
Also attending were Mayor James K. Hahn and City Atty. Rocky Delgadillo, who announced he was filing the first ever criminal cases in Los Angeles under a new state law charging two additional men with videotaping inside movie theaters.
Delgadillo is filing 12 other criminal cases against street vendors accused of selling counterfeit DVDs and CDs.
In the Thursday arrests, police said an anonymous tip led them to a man selling allegedly counterfeit DVDs on a street in the west San Fernando Valley about a month and a half ago.
Their investigation led them Thursday to an allegedly counterfeit DVD and CD production line in a home on 4th Street west of downtown L.A. as well as an alleged distributor of bogus movies in South Los Angeles.
At the 4th Street site, police seized three stacks of DVD recorders, seven high-speed CD recorders, a computer, a disc labeler, dozens of boxes of allegedly counterfeit DVDs and CDs and about $5,000 in cash. They arrested Jose Luis Santiago, 33, of Los Angeles on charges of failing to identify the true origin of goods.
At the same time, officers raided a home on West 46th Street, where they confiscated dozens more boxes of allegedly counterfeit DVDs. Two men were arrested there, also on charges of failing to identify origin: Gerardo Morales, 27, and Jose Lezama, whose age was unavailable.
Police also arrested Filberto Gomez, 50, of the West Valley area on the same charge.
- Pirate DVD Operation Stokes Industry Fears Nov 01, 2001
- 100 People Identified in Piracy Raid Apr 23, 2004
- Digital Piracy's Reluctant Star Apr 08, 2005
