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Digital Legal
Download scam group in court next month
By CMU Editorial | Published on Monday 23 August 2010
Twelve people accused of involvement in an elaborate money laundering scam whereby they uploaded songs to legit download sites, including iTunes and Amazon MP3, and then bought them with stolen or cloned credit cards thus generating royalties for themselves (and, they hoped, nicely cleaned stolen loot) are due to begin their trial in London next month.
As previously reported, the group, who all hail from around the UK, though mainly Wolverhampton, were arrested in June last year in a joint operation between the Metropolitan Police and the FBI. Eight men aged between nineteen and 24 are accused of uploading around 20 tunes they’d produced to the digital music stores. They then went online using 1500 different stolen credit cards and bought their own music, spending over £450,000, and earning themselves £200,000 in royalties.
Four others will face charges related to the scam. The trial is due to begin at the City Of Westminster Magistrates’ Court on 15 Sep.
