A sophisticated cyber fraudster calling himself "Sir Cash King" made more than £1.3m trading stolen bank details, before using his criminal profits to pay for a lavish wedding.

Sean Benson, 26, of Canterbury Road, Croydon, bought stolen debit and credit card data from a Russian online criminal network before funnelling money from the accounts into his own fake business.

Benson ran a company called Identity Music, which claimed to sell audio material to DJs and musicians but in fact was a front for his frauds.

He was jailed for seven years at Southwark Crown Court yesterday after being found guilty of fraud and money laundering.

He was brought to trial along with his wife Jennifer Hallam, who pocketed some of his profits, after the Metropolitan Police and National Crime Agency (NCA) launched a three-year investigation into "Sir Cash King".

Benson was an active member of an online criminal forum under the pseudonym, which he used to buy bank details from the Russian gangs.

His avatar on the forum was a cartoon character, created by Benson, of a besuited man holding a bank note.

Benson obtained data for more than 2,000 cards, with which he made purchases on his sham music website - which purported to sell beats, samples and loops to musicians - to channel the money directly into his five Lloyds TSB bank accounts.

Detective Constable Barry Steel, of the Met Police, said: "Benson set up a sophisticated system to fraudulently obtain innocent people's bank details through Russian criminal networks and steal their money.

"Painstaking and lengthy analysis proved a link between Sir King Cash's activities in cyberspace and Benson's music activities in the real world.

"He made more than a million pounds and I have no doubt he would have continued his activities, causing frustration and misery to law-abiding bank customers by emptying their accounts for his own gain."

Benson's bank accounts contained £534,000 when they were frozen by the Met's criminal finance team in 2013.

He also withdrew £100,000 to pass to his wife, 25, who transferred about £80,000 of it to the Russian criminals to pay for more bank details.

The couple used about £40,000 of stolen money to fund their extravagant wedding and honeymoon in Hawaii.

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Benson and Hallam paid for a lavish wedding using their criminal profits

Detectives investigating them uncovered 2,000 compromised bank accounts and 700 victims of fraud.
They arrested the pair in January 2013 and charged them in March 2014.

Benson was found guilty of two counts of fraud by false representation and three counts of money laundering.

Hallam was found guilty of money laundering and given an 18-month jail sentence, suspended for two years.

Steve Brown, senior investigator at the NCA’s cyber crime unit, said: "This was high-level criminality, requiring extensive work by investigators to track down the person behind the online persona and to follow the illicit money trail. 

"The NCA and its partners continue to demonstrate that we can identify criminals who think they are operating anonymously online, and ensure they are brought to account."

Imitizali Govani, 55, of Waverly Avenue, Wembley, was found not guilty of money laundering in connection to the same investigation.