Alleged music pirate had 720,000 songs for sale at Fontana swap meet

FONTANA, Calif. (KABC) -- Investigators showed up to a swap meet in Fontana expecting to bust someone selling counterfeit purses. Instead, they say, they nabbed a man who was offering more than $860,000 worth of pirated music for sale.

Fontana police arrested Fernando Sanchez, 21, for allegedly offering for sale thousands of illegally copied songs on thumb drives and memory cards, with a retail value of $864,414.

"He had over 720,000 songs that were downloaded in all these different devices, so this individual is facing charges for music piracy," said Martha Guzman-Hurtado, spokesperson for the Fontana Police Department.

Sanchez displayed the items, mostly music from Latin American stars, at the Bel-Air Swap Meet in neatly arranged plastic cases with handwritten labels. Most of the music was stored on micro SD memory cards that he offered for $11.89 each.

Sanchez was booked at West Valley Detention Center and later released on bail. He faces a felony charge of failure to disclose origin of music.