A hacker who has been accused of stealing tens of millions of credit and debit card numbers in one of the largest computer break-ins in U.S. history has been pleaded guilty on Friday to fraud, identity theft and other charges.
Albert Gonzalez, 28, of Miami, also agreed as part of a plea agreement with federal prosecutors that he has forfeited more than $2.7 million, a Miami condo, a 2006 BMW 330i, a Tiffany diamond ring and Rolex watches. He will have to pass up to 20 years in prison and is scheduled to be sentenced Dec. 8
In a Boston federal court Gonzalez pleaded guilty to 20 counts of conspiracy, computer fraud, wire fraud, access device fraud and aggravated identity theft. Nineteen of the charges were contained in an indictment handed down in August 2008 in Massachusetts, and one charge, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, started from a New York indictment handed down in May 2008.
The Massachusetts charges developed from the hacks into numerous major U.S. retailers, including TJX Companies, BJ’s Wholesale Club,OfficeMax,Boston Market, Barnes & Noble and Sports Authority. In New York, the charge has been related to hacks into the Dave & Buster’s restaurant chain. According to federal prosecutors, more than 40 million credit and debit card numbers have been stolen from the retailers.
According to the indictments, Gonzalez and two unidentified co-conspirators located in or near Russia through a series of sophisticated techniques have broke into credit-card payment systems, these techniques included “wardriving” and the installation of sniffer programs to capture credit and debit card numbers. Wardriving is such a method that involves driving around in a car along with a laptop to find accessible wireless computer networks in retail stores.
According to the indictments, Gonzalez and his co-conspirators sold the numbers and rthey have also been engaged in ATM fraud they have done it by encoding the data on the magnetic strips of blank cards and withdrawing tens of thousands of dollars at a time. Gonzalez and the others hide and laundered the money they received through the Web and also by channeling funds through bank accounts in Eastern Europe.
Last month also Gonzalez has faced a third federal indictment handed down in New Jersey. He’s has been accused of stealing credit and debit card numbers from major U.S. retail and financial companies that are working in the state, these includes Heartland Payment Systems, which is a New Jersey-based card payment processor; 7-Eleven Inc., which is a Texas-based nationwide convenience store chain; and Hannaford Brothers Co. Inc., which is known as a Maine-based supermarket chain. That case is still pending.
