An amateur Wolverhampton DJ has scammed iTunes and Amazon by using stolen credit cards to purchase his own music, eventually selling more tracks than Madonna!

Denver White aka DJ Denver and up to 11 friends allegedly used 24 laptops with anti-tracking software and thousands of stolen credit cards to make the purchases between January 2008 and March 2009.

The prosecutor for the case, Helen Malcolm QC told the court: “It was fraud on both iTunes and Amazon and, between them, these companies have lost between £750,000 and £1million”.

White’s music had been uploaded to iTunes and Amazon through third-party services such as Tunecore, CD Baby and Tunecast. When the fraud was spotted Denvers music was pulled from the site and up to £113,000 in royalty payments withheld.

The courts prosecutor Miss Malcolm continued: “Shortly after they were stopped, Tunecore started to get a number of calls and emails from a man calling himself Daniel Thompson demanded outstanding royalties. What he did not know was that Tunecore knew there was a fraud and they were in touch with US law enforcement. Tunecore hoped to persuade him to identify himself, by persuading him to come to New York to collect his royalties and offered him free air tickets.”

She added: “At that stage Thompson said that the tickets would have to be sent in the name of Denver White. He gave Denver White’s real address for the tickets to be posted to and (this) led authorities to uncover all 11 defendants.”

Jurors have heard guilt plea’s from the 11 others involved while Mr White still pleads not-guilty on one count of conspiracy to defraud.

Some people just don’t get it do they…

via NME