The Metropolitan Police and the FBI have caught an international criminal gang said to have made tens of thousands of pounds by buying their own records from Apple iTunes and Amazon with stolen credit cards.
The gang are alleged to have created several songs that they provided to an online American company, which uploaded them to be sold on the two internet sites.
It is believed that over four months from September last year the gang used 1,500 stolen or cloned British and American credit cards to buy songs worth $750,000 (£469,000).
Amazon and iTunes, which were unaware of the fraud, paid $300,000 in royalties. Six men and three women were arrested yesterday by 60 officers at addresses in London, Birmingham, Wolverhampton and Kent. A man in his forties, was arrested later.
They are all being held in custody on suspicion of conspiracy to commit fraud and money laundering.
A police source said: “We will not know why they did what they did until we have conducted all the interviews.” It is believed that one of the gang is a DJ and that he created the songs that were then bought.
Scotland Yard said: “The arrests are the result of a parallel investigation with the FBI that the unit began in February 2009. It was established that between September 2008 and January 2009 a UK criminal network provided music via an online US company that uploaded the tracks to Apple iTunes and Amazon.com for sale.
“It is believed that the criminal network instigated music sales of approximately $750,000 using the illicitly-held credit cards.
“Apple and Amazon, which at the time were unaware of the fraud, paid out royalties totalling $300,000 on the sales. They have subsequently been assisting the police investigation.”
The gang are believed to have compiled 19 songs which were put on to the sites, some are thought to have attracted attention from music bosses.
It has been reported that the group paid an annual $30-per-album fee to the company Tunecore, a music distribution serice, to get their albums on the sites before downloading them at $10 a time but Scotland Yard have been unable to confirm this.
Apple refused to comment on the story but it is believed that there is no standard fee for royalties and each deal is negotiated separately. The gang is said to have made 40 per cent from the royalties.
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