$329,000 in Counterfeit Audio Cassettes Seized

GLENDALE â€”  More than 47,000 counterfeit audio cassette tapes, with a retail value of about $329,000, were seized last week from the Glendale headquarters of a company that imports and sells Middle Eastern foods, authorities reported.

The tapes, discovered in the Indo-European Inc. warehouse, were illegal copies of recordings made by popular Arabic singers and musical groups, Glendale Police Sgt. James Fitzgerald said.

Indo-European Food bought the tapes from a Houston-based importer and sold them wholesale to small family-owned Middle Eastern grocery stores throughout Southern California, investigators said.

Albert Bezjian, co-owner of the food company, said he had no reason to believe the tapes were copies. The importer, he said, had assured him they were original recordings made in Lebanon.

“We’ve been in business for 26 years,� Bezjian said. “I’m not going to sell something that’s going to put a stain in my operation. If I had any doubt, or feel that it might not have been legit, I never would have carried it.�

A representative of the Washington D.C.-based Recording Industry Assn. of America said the Bezjians were twice warned by the association that the tapes were illegal and that they should stop selling them.

Bezjian, 53, and his wife, Terry Lee Bezjian, 47, both of Los Angeles, and the company’s office manager, Ovsanna Vosgueritchian, 40, of Glendale, were cited by police on June 25 and ordered to appear in Glendale Municipal Court on Aug. 6, Fitzgerald said. The three will be charged with failing to disclose the origin of a sound recording, the sergeant said, a felony punishable by up to five years in prison.

A city work crew, using a forklift and truck, was employed to cart away the cassettes. Sgt. Lief Nicolaisen said the tapes are being stored as evidence in a warehouse rented by the Police Department.