The common perception is “not much.” Well that’s not true. Those involved in intellectual property crimes, such as music piracy and the sales of counterfeit products can make huge amounts of money. Trademark law and other laws are designed to protect the rights of every person, who creates and innovates. In one music piracy case alone, the subject, who we will call “Angelica” was involved in what appeared to be the low level street sales of pirated music.
I remember myself feeling sorry for her thinking, well she is just trying to make a living and she seemed like such a nice lady. We all know “the ends do not justify the means” and intellectual property crimes hurt us all in so many ways. Angelica appeared to be so nice and unassuming. Well after being arrested a couple of times for selling pirated music on the streets of Los Angeles and being served with over 15 cease and desist notices, law enforcement served a search warrant at her house. Guess what? They found several thousand pirated music CDs, along with $ 40,000 in cash. The cops also found records that Angelica had over $ 700,000 cash in bank accounts and that she owned her $ 300,000 home outright. If that was not enough, turns out that she was on public assistance and obviously not paying her fair share of taxes. During the search, law enforcement also found information and evidence that Angelica was involved in loan sharking activities. This is one of many stories like this.
By Investigative Consultants
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