Rochdale men sentenced for iTunes fraud

Seven Rochdale men have been sentenced for their roles in a fraud where hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of music gift certificates were bought and sold to launder money.

At Manchester Crown Square Crown Court, Suhail Tufail, 27, of Ashfield Road, Rochdale, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud, money laundering and possession of articles intended for use in fraud.

Unemployed Tufail orchestrated the scam and worked with several others to maximize financial gain and was sentenced to five years in prison.

Detective Inspector Neal Colburn, of the Greater Manchester Police Economic Crime Unit said: "This was a complex fraud on a large scale. The group thought they had a sophisticated scam to launder money, but the pro-active intervention of the police got in their way.

Four other men were given custodial sentences for their parts in the fraud.

Mohammed Arfan Rasool, 25, of Milkstone Road, Rochdale, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud, money laundering and possession of articles intended for use in fraud. He was sentenced to five years in prison.

Raja Zahid Iqbal 28, of Milkstone Road, Rochdale pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud and conspiracy to convert criminal property. He was sentenced to two years and five months in prison.

Kibriya Ahmad, 25, of Marland Hill Road, Rochdale pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud and money laundering. He was sentenced two years in prison.

Imran Aslam, 23, of Whitworth Road, Rochdale pleaded guilty to possession of articles intended for use in fraud and was sentenced to six months’ imprisonment.

Anwar Bibi , 46, of Crawford Street, Rochdale, Mohammed Ali 27 of Oldham Road, Rochdale and Another man,Ketanbhai Kantubhai Patel , 29, of Kings Road, Ashton Under Lyne all also pleaded guilty to their part in the fraud, admitting conspiracy to defraud and money laundering and were given community orders.

In the fraud, more than 7000 bankcard numbers had been compromised and were used to spend more than £750,000 on iTunes Gift Certificates as a medium for money laundering.

In May 2007, Humberside Ports Police stopped Rasool, Aslam and another man in Hull as part of a routine search when they arrived from Amsterdam.

Officers were suspicious of a number of items in the car and seized a laptop.

Greater Manchester Police's Economic Crime Section took over the investigation and when the laptop was examined, along with two other computers found at Rasool's home, details of more than 7000 bankcards used to make online payments were found. These same details were found on computers seized from Tufail and Bibi.

Further inquiries revealed many of the bank details had been used to fraudulently purchase iTunes Gift Certificates online.

Tufail developed the idea of buying the Gift Certificates and then selling them at a reduced price on eBay and other online market places, to launder cash from the bankcards.

DI Colburn added: "Investigations such as these send a clear message to criminals that the authorities will pursue them relentlessly."

Online auction site eBay have been working closely with Greater Manchester Police and have warned others thinking of using the site to commit fraud.

An eBay spokesperson said: "Criminal activity is not tolerated on our site and we will continue to work alongside law enforcement agencies to ensure that anyone who attempts to commit fraudulent activity on eBay won't get away with it."