Michael Smith, 54, pled guilty on March 19, 2026 to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and was handed a sentence of 18 months in federal prison on May 28, 2026.
The scheme, running from 2017 to 2024, began with Smith creating thousands of fake accounts—up to 10,000 at a time—on Amazon Music, Apple Music, Spotify and YouTube Music, all funded by stolen debit cards.
His bot accounts streamed AI‑generated tracks, a library of hundreds of thousands of songs he wrote, and the fraudulent streams generated more than $8,091,843 in royalty payments that were then siphoned off to a bank account he controlled.
Prosecutors highlighted the scale by noting that in April 2023 Smith’s bots pulled 80.9 million streams on YouTube Music, eclipsing Taylor Swift’s entire catalogue, which logged 9.3 million family‑plan streams that month.
US Attorney Jamie McDonald said the case demonstrates how super‑intelligence tools can be weaponised to defraud the music industry, and that the Justice Department will tighten its monitoring of automated streaming activity.
Smith is also ordered to forfeit the exact amount of $8,091,843.64, will serve a supervised release for two years after completing his term, and is expected to surrender to the Department of Justice for further compliance checks.