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.
British IT Guru and 'Internet of Things' inventor Kevin Ashton today said Republican candidate Donald Trump's stance on outsourcing industry and immigration policies will do "damage to US and not to India."
British Home Secretary Amber Rudd's announcement of the new policy is expected to make it tougher for British firms to hire professionals from countries outside the EU, like India.
With US elections due next month, several Indian-Americans are hopeful of winning a seat in the US Congress, especially women. According to US political experts, there are several Americans of Indian origin who are eying becoming legislators.
The Uri attack that killed 19 Indian Army soldiers and the subsequent "surgical strikes" across the Line of Control (LoC) that took out an estimated 35-40 militants has seen the ratcheting up of dangerous rhetoric on both sides of the border.
