BOOTLEG ASIAN MUSIC 'A FRONT' FOR DRUG CASH

A MAJOR investigation has been launched into an international
money-laundering racket that uses the distributors of Asian music as
frontmen.

Foreign crime barons are behind the multi-million-pound operation, which
involves selling counterfeit tapes and CDs of Asian music to launder illegal
money made from drugs. They buy the bootlegged CDs and cassettes and then
sell them on through outlets to earn "legitimate" cash.

The racket has had a catastrophic effect on the Asian music business,
causing the sales of genuine CDs and cassettes to plummet. Music experts
said that the UKP100 million business has shrunk by up to 70 per cent over
the past 12 months.

It came to light when music industry officials alerted trading standards
officers and the police to the influx of counterfeit CDs and tapes. Last
week there was a series of raids on warehouses in London, when thousands of
CDs and tapes were seized.

Giles Speid, a senior trading standards officer in Wembley, north London,
where a warehouse of counterfeit Asian music CDs was raided, said: "The sale
of counterfeit music is part and parcel of a money-laundering scam by
criminals. Investing in the bootlegging trade is an easy way of making dirty
money clean."

Kaljit Bharma, an Asian music producer in Southall, west London, said:
"Bootleg salesmen who are arrested are usually too frightened to reveal
where the merchandise originates from, and claim it was bought in pubs or
restaurants. Investigators rarely believe them."

The bootlegging has become so effective that, within 48 hours of a new
release by a leading Asian artist, shops and stalls can be flooded with
counterfeit versions selling at a quarter of the normal price.

The criminals behind the fraud are thought to be based in Pakistan and
India, although some of the seized tapes appear to have been manufactured in
Italy, Bulgaria and Latin America.

Checked-by: Don Beck