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Kent woman sentenced for £1m royalties fraud

Southwark Crown Court
Southwark Crown Court

A Dartford woman has been sentenced as part of a £1m "fake royalties" fraud of iTunes and Amazon.

She was one of 11 people accused of a plot in which thousands of stolen or compromised credit cards were used to buy songs to generate fake royalty payments.

Clarke, 24, formerly of Edwin Road, Dartford, was given a 32-week prison sentence, suspended for two years, and order to do 150 hours community service after admitting possessing criminal property.

Ring leader Craig Anderson, 24, also of Edwin Road, who pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud, was jailed for four years and eight months in April last year.

The court heard he bought 24 identical laptops, obtaining thousands of stolen or compromised credit card details and email addresses and recruiting helpers to log in and buy songs to generate royalties.

Often the credit cards they were using had been cloned rather than stolen and the purchases - which were for less than £10 each time - went unnoticed, prosecutor Helen Malcolm QC told the court last year.

The fraud came to light because iTunes realised they were paying royalties to what appeared to be utterly unknown musicians in the Wolverhampton area at a rate they expect to pay to someone like Madonna.

The court was told that the scam, which ran between January 2008 and June 2009, made £500,000 but caused losses to iTunes and Amazon of between £750,000 and £1 million.

Former IT teacher James Batchelor, 29, of Stonehill Road, Derby, was sentenced to two years in jail, and Colton Johnson, 21, of Deansfield Road, Wolverhampton, to 80 hours community service at Southwark Crown Court in London after pleading guilty to conspiracy to defraud the online music giants.

Denver White, 26, of Helming Drive, Wolverhampton was cleared of taking part in the conspiracy.

At a hearing in January this year, four other people were sentenced by Judge Nicholas Loraine-Smith after they also pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud.

Brothers Rajan and Sandeep Aheer, both of Wellington Road, Wolverhampton, were jailed for two years. Defence counsel for Rajan, 22, told the court he was a student at the time of the offence and had been struggling financially.

Sandeep, 24, was more involved in the organisation of laptops and hard drives for the scam, the court heard.

Matthew Clarke, 32, of Cross Farm Road, Birmingham, provided music to be uploaded as part of the scam. He was jailed for two years.

Sheahan Steele, 43, of Hartington Road, Birmingham, was given a 32-week sentence suspended for two years and ordered to do 240 hours community service.

Leon Miles, 21, of Brooklands Parade, Wolverhampton, who pleaded guilty to a charge of money laundering, was given a 32 week jail term suspended for two years and ordered to do 150 hours community service.

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