Fergie's Tech Blog

Arrest in London Adds to Woes of Allofmp3.com

Via OUT-LAW.com.

British police have shut down an online voucher scheme that was allegedly used by the Russian music download site Allofmp3.com to take payments. Visa, MasterCard and PayPal stopped taking payments for the site after the music industry declared it illegal.

A 25-year-old man was arrested in London following a pan-European investigation led by the music industry. The unnamed man is alleged to be the UK agent for Allofmp3.com, facilitating the sale of digital downloads by advertising and selling vouchers through auction sites such as eBay and the website Allofmp3vouchers.co.uk. That website has now been taken down. The vouchers contained a code that allowed European consumers to access and download music from the allofmp3.com website.

Charging £10 per voucher, the suspect was believed to be taking payment from European customers and transferring the cash into various offshore accounts operated by the site's Russian owners, according to a joint statement from global recording industry body IFPI and the UK record companies' association the BPI.

Metropolitan Police officers seized computer equipment and paperwork for further investigation. Early indications suggest the pirate operation may have generated criminal proceeds for the Russian website running into the tens of thousands of pounds, according to the joint statement.

posted by Fergie @ 5/21/2007 10:44:00 AM