LIVE OAK, Texas -- Live Oak Police shut down a suspected one-man movie piracy operation and seized a total of 5,600 DVDs and CDs, Sgt. Anita Seamans said. The value of the counterfeit discs was in the tens of thousands of dollars.
"The suspect in this case was arrested by patrol officers after he was involved in shoplifting from one of our stores in the Forum. His vehicle was searched pursuant to that arrest and cocaine was found in his vehicle," Sgt. Seamans said.
A search warrant executed at Richard Ortega Garza's home uncovered the discs, hundreds of empty movie and music cases, a laminator and a hard drive made to copy multiple discs at once, she said. Sgt. Seamans said he appeared to make copies of the real movies or CDs or burn DVDs from movies streaming online.
Investigators with the Motion Picture Association of America were working to verify the DVDs seized were counterfeit. So far, 222 had been confirmed as fakes, Sgt. Seamans said.
Garza has not yet been charged but could be facing state and federal charges. If convicted, he could face up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine on the state charges alone, Sgt. Seamans said.
