From the seriously stupid pile comes a story out of England that will make you shake you head and wonder why some criminals are just so dumb.
According to NME, a wannabe DJ superstar, Denver White (AKA DJ Denver) alledgedly defrauded both iTunes and Amazon out of approximately $1.5 million after using a series of computers to purchase his music using stolen credits cards.
Literally thousands of stolen cards were used in the fraud, which came to the attention of the two companies after the no-name DJ bought some many copies of his track he outsold Madonna and rocketed to the top of the iTunes charts.
According to prosecutors White and his team behind the scam used up to 24 laptops loaded with trace blocking software to avoid detection, and bought White’s songs over a period of up to a year and a half.
White uploaded his music to iTunes and Amazon using Songcast, CD Baby, and Tunecore, and it was the later who picked up on the scam, prompting White’s music to be removed immediately and about $170,000 in royalty payments being withheld.
But here’s where White and his mates got really stupid. According to prosecutor Helen Malcolm QC, “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.”
“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.”
Everyone except White has admitted their involvement in the crime, but White continues to deny he was in anyway involved. The trial continues.
