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.
Indian-American community members in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area have planned to hold a sit-in Satyagraha in front of Mahatma Gandhi statue at the Indian Embassy in the US capital on February 1.
A man previously arrested in connection with the case, 29-year-old Gurjeet Singh, has been remanded in custody to appear at Snaresbrook Crown Court on February 19 after being charged with possessing an offensive weapon in a public place this week.
Sindh Minister for Minorities Affairs, Hari Ram Kishori, on Tuesday took cognisance of the incident, which took place last week in Hala town of Matiari district in Sindh province, and asked for a police report.
