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.
Last month, Egyptian lawmaker Elhamy Agina declared that women should undergo female genital mutilation in order to "reduce their sexual desires" because Egyptian men are "sexually weak."
Trump told The New York Times that he believes talking about the sex scandals that stained the career of Hillary's husband Bill would turn female voters away from her
In a move that will create tensions with India, China has extended its decision to put a technical hold on the United Nations declaring Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed's chief Massod Azhar a terrorist.
The army has often played a prominent role in the governance of Pakistan as democracy has not been tailored to its environment, the country's former president Gen (retd) Pervez Musharraf has said.
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump once again attacked "disgusting" former Miss Universe Alicia Machado in a series of early morning tweets, and urged his followers to "check out (her) sex tape and past".
