This is crazy. Popular mixtape DJ from Connecticut DJ Big Mike (Michael Willcox) was arrested for making $30, 000 per month in mixtape sales. They had surveillance on him for 2 years and caught him and his brother in the act of distributing illegal CDs. More arrests are going to be made in the coming weeks.
The investigation began with the Recording Industry Association of America, a trade group that sent its own team of investigators to conduct a surveillance of a suspected “burner lab” at 27 Stetson Place in Danbury where pirated CDs were alleged being made and distributed, according to the affidavit.
The trade group is comprised of record companies that create, manufacture and distribute about 85-percent of all legitimate sound recordings made and sold in the United States, according to the affidavit. Three investigators from RIAA began the surveillance in Feburary of 2009.
The investigators allegedly followed a 1995 Ford Explorer registered to Willcox from his Danbury home to a residence at 12 George St., Mount Vernon, NY, which was suspected of supplying the materials and equipment used to manufacture recordable CDs and DVDs, according to the affidavit.
Through further surveillance, an RIAA investigator allegedly followed Willcox to a Queens, NY check cashing establishment and later bought two CDss from a stack he allegedly had seen Willcox bringing in labeled “Big Mike DJ Mixes,” according to the affidavit.
Later, another RIAA investigator conducting a surveillance on the Danbury home saw a suspect identified only as “Little Mike” carrying a handful of CDs into a Gulf gas station at 113 North St. in Danbury and when she went in she was able to purchase one of those CDs for $5, according to the affidavit.
The CD bought in Queens and the one bought in Danbury apparently held the same content and later examination showed they were pirated recordings, according to the affidavit.
You can read the rest of the story here