Ten people were this morning bailed to reappear in court to
face charges that they used stolen credit cards to defraud Apple's
online music shop, iTunes.
The suspects, three women and seven men aged between 19 and 46,
were arrested by the Met's Police Central E-Crime Unit (PCEU)
yesterday in raids across London and the Midlands.
The arrests were the result of a parallel investigation with the
FBI that the unit began in February. In a statement, police said
that between September 2008 and January 2009 a UK criminal network
provided music via an online US company which uploaded the tracks
to Apple iTunes and Amazon.com for sale.
Police estimated the gang's modified "pump and dump" scheme
instigated music sales of $750,000 using 1,500 compromised UK and
US credit cards.
Apple and Amazon, which at the time were unaware of the fraud
being committed against them, paid out royalties totalling $300,000
on the sales. They have subsequently been assisting the police
investigation.
DCI Terry Wilson, from the PCEU, said, "This has been a complex
investigation to establish what we believe to be an international
conspiracy to defraud Apple and Amazon.
"This investigation, with its national and international
dimension, exemplifies why we have set up this national response
to
e-crime.
"We are now making it more risky for criminals who seek to
exploit the internet and commit e-crime across national
borders."
This is the second high-profile arrest made by the PCEU since it
started operations in September 2008. Earlier it
tracked down a gang that distributed Trojan malware that stole
bank account details from unsuspecting victims.