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.
Rupen R. Shah, who is currently the Chief Deputy of Augusta County Commonwealth in Virginia, has become the first Indian American judge to be elected the southeastern US state.
We need programmes dedicated to putting American workers first. When skilled foreign workers are needed to meet the demands of our labour market, we must also ensure that visa applicants who honed their skills at American colleges
A day before he demits office, US Ambassador to India Richard Verma, on Thursday underlined how the two countries resolved some "tough issues" during his tenure, including nuclear liability, even as he cautioned against being "complacent".
A 46-year-old Indian has been abducted in Malaysia and External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj has directed the Indian Mission in that country to send her a report about the case so that he can be rescued.
A 49-year-old Indian businessman, who had been missing for days, was found hanging in his office inside a residential building in Fujairah, the media reported.
