Scammers based in Britain defrauded Apple and Amazon out of £500,000-worth of royalty payments and cost the two companies around £1 million in losses. The crooks gained access to thousands of credit card details which they then used to make purchases of music tracks where they were the royalty beneficiaries. According to Macworld:
The investigation was first launched by the New York Police Department, but was passed to the PCeU when it became apparent that the operation was based in the UK. In total, 11 individuals have been convicted and sentenced to a total of 13 years, four months imprisonment.
Who say’s crime doesn’t pay? I calculate this is an average of 14 months per gang member, so they’ll be out again in a little over seven months. And since the ringleader got the biggest slice of 56 months out of the total 160 months, the rest of them are probably already walking the streets again.