Indian-origin hacker gets 51 months jail for computer fraud in US
Darpan News Desk IANS, 24 May, 2023 12:52 PM
ew York, May 24 (IANS) A 38-year-old Indian-origin hacker from Virginia was sentenced to more than four years in prison for hacking into computers and stealing customer credit card numbers.
Chirag Patel from Norfolk pleaded guilty to computer fraud and was sentenced by US District Judge G Murray Snow to 51 months in prison, followed by three years of supervised release.
He also was ordered to pay $87,522.25 in restitution, the US Attorney's Office for the District of Arizona said on Monday.
According to a Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), between August 2017 and July 2020, Patel hacked into the Phoenix-based computers of an international hospitality company on numerous occasions.
He then fraudulently transferred and redeemed customer reward points from the company's customer loyalty program.
In addition, Patel also stole credit card numbers and other personally identifying information (PII) from customers and loyalty program members, which were stored in the company's computers.
Patel took screenshots of customers' and members' information, which included credit card numbers and other PII, and saved the screenshots to a Google Drive he controlled.
In total, between August 2017 and July 2020, Patel stole and possessed more than 1,200 credit card numbers, the FBI investigation found.
He used some of the stolen credit card numbers to make unauthorized purchases and also tried to sell some of the stolen credit card numbers.
US President Barack Obama called up Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday to thank him for his positive role and leadership in the successful outcome of the UN climate change conference in Paris.
Donald Trump has explicitly ruled out running as an independent, downplaying the scare scenario for Republicans that he might split the party's support in next year's presidential election.
SEATTLE — Chipotle will not raise prices to cover the cost of new food safety procedures put in place after an E. coli outbreak sickened more than 50 people, the company's founder and CEO said Tuesday during a visit to Seattle.
As Pakistan marks the first year following the Peshawar attack, surviving school children, teachers and parents have been attempting to make the long journey back to normality.
PYONGYANG, Korea, Democratic People's Republic Of — North Korea's Supreme Court sentenced a Canadian pastor to life in prison with hard labour on Wednesday for what it called crimes against the state.
For the first time in nearly a decade, America's central bank, the US Federal Reserve raised its key interest rate on Wednesday from a range of 0 percent to 0.25 percent to a range of 0.25 percent to 0.5 percent.
