Playboi Carti‘s infamous leaker, a man known as “King Bob” who has also leaked misic by other major artists has been arrested on charges relating to wire fraud and identity theft.
According to the United States Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Florida, the 19-year-old — whose real name is Noah Michael Urban — was arrested on Thursday (January 11) and charged with one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, eight counts of wire fraud, and five counts of aggravated identity theft.
Urban is looking at 20 years in prison per wire fraud charge, for a total of 160 years behind bars; plus two years in prison per charge of aggravated identity theft, for a total of an additional 10 years. This brings his bare minimum sentence to 170 years if he’s convicted on all charges.
The Middle District of Florida alleges that Urban — who also went by the aliases “Sosa,” “Elijah,” and “Anthony Ramirez” — stole more than $800,000 from five different victims through his various crimes. Jail logs show that he was picked up by the Volusia County Sheriff’s Office and hit with an additional charge of being a fugitive from justice.
Urban has pleaded not guilty to all the charges. None of the musicians whose work he leaked in the past — which also includes artists like Ariana Grande and Lil Uzi Vert — have been listed as victims of any of his financial scams.
However, part of Urban’s charges include his alleged fraudulent use of cryptocurrency. Cryptocurrency — specifically, Bitcoin — was at the center of an alleged leak of Playboi Carti’s music back in 2020, at the hands of DaBaby’s producer Jetsonmade.
In a clip posted to social media at the time, Jetsonmade talks with a fan who offers him thousands of dollars for Carti’s unreleased work. The producer tells the prospective buyer he doesn’t have one song the man was looking for but does have access to the second one.
Throughout the conversation, Jetsonmade appears to have some trepidation. At one point, the fan asks, “Bruh, I thought you wanted money? Bro, I’m literally about to pay you money for songs that are never dropping. So, you’ll never get money from them dropping.”
Playboi Carti Taunts Frank Ocean About Previewing New Music: ‘U Scared?’
Jetsonmade responds, “I’ll call you back in two minutes.”
The producer behind DaBaby’s multi-platinum selling hit “Suge” subsequently claimed he was trolling after a video showed him discussing the potential sale of unreleased Carti songs for $17,000 in Bitcoin.
“dat video y’all keep posting is CAP,” he wrote on Instagram Stories at the time. “i was definitely trolling.”
In light of the charges against Urban, however, it has left fans wondering if Jetsonmade was, in fact, communicating with “King Bob,” albeit unknowingly, at the time.
Thus far, Urban hasn’t been hit with any charges related to the song leaks.
