On December 7, two men broke into TDE’s in-house producer MixedByAli’s BMW i8 and stole a hard drive of unreleased music of his estimated to be worth about $1 million dollars or so. The theft took place while MixedByAli was at the Equinox gym on Rosecrans Avenue in Hawthorne, California. His BMW, along with two other cars were broken into that night, but luckily for him the Hawthrone cops have now found the missing hard drive.
Fingerprints left on the handle of Ali’s car door allowed them to recover the stolen item. “Basically these guys are serial car burglars,” Hawthorne police Lt. James Royer told the Los Angeles Daily News about the burglars. "They prey upon victims who leave items viewable from the outside.” “We found gift cards, video recorders, Luis Vuitton bags, golf clubs,” Royer said. “We are up to 14 different victims.”
Attempts to reach Ali on Wednesday were unsuccessful. Police said Ali was grateful that officers found the hard drive and returned it to him.
“He is very, very happy,” Hawthorne police Lt. James Royer said. However, Another copy, remains at large. The device is encrypted so it is of no use to whoever has it. Still, Ali was glad to get one copy back, Royer said.
It was unclear whether the hard drive contained works by Kendrick Lamar or any other TDE artists, but either way it’s got to be a huge relief for the TDE producer.
The suspect caught is non-other than Jonjairo Espinoza, 23, of Los Angeles, who is being charged with 8 counts of burglary in another case and is scheduled to appear in a downtown Los Angeles courtroom on Thursday.