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.
According to court documents and statements made in court, from at least 2012 to December 2016, Khan and others were engaged in a scheme to purchase goods that were controlled under the Export Administration Regulations (EAR) and export those goods without a license to Pakistan, in violation of the EAR.
Messages of sorrow and condolence have been pouring in following the death of a Canadian woman who was killed in Saturday's terror attack in the heart of London.
The man, identified as 'Abz' or "Abbs" is believed to have been the ringleader of the trio that carried out the horror attack at two London landmarks, The Mirror reported.
The bodies of an Indian techie and his three-year-old son who drowned in the community pool in Michigan city last week, are being taken to India and will reach on Tuesday.
An Indian man was killed and two others were injured after their car ran off a slippery road on a curve and struck a tree in Thailand's Nong Hong district on Saturday.
US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley has said the international community is "concerned" about Russian poll meddling and that Moscow should know there are "consequences" for interfering in US elections.
