Feds Bust Phoenix Man in $20 Million YouTube Royalties Scam

Jose Chenel Teran and Webster Batista appeared on social media to have it all, after building an online music business empire worth millions: expensive cars, flashy jewelry, properties in Miami and Phoenix.

What they didn’t have was any legal right to the 50,000-plus songs they claimed to own over the past four years, in what feds allege was a scam that cost real artists and content creators more than $20 million.

Teran, is also known as Jose Medina, Jose Manuel Medina Teran, or simply Chanel hails from Scottsdale.

Federal authorities arrested Batista, who also goes by the pseudonyms Eniel Gaetan Hernandez and Yenddi, in the Miami suburb of Doral, on November 18, on charges of wire fraud, money laundering, aggravated identity theft, and conspiracy. He posted $150,000 in bail plus a $100,000 bond cosigned by his mother and was ordered by a federal judge to remove himself to Phoenix earlier this month, where he awaits trial in January alongside Teran, his alleged co-conspirator.

Teran purchased a 5-bedroom house now worth nearly $1 million in a gated community in the Sonoran Foothills in North Phoenix, records show.

The pair appeared in federal court in Phoenix on December 1. If convicted, the men in their mid-30s could spend about 35 years in prison.

Miami attorney David Garvin, who represented Batista in a…