Biggest Hacker Gets Biggest Sentence

A notorious credit card hacker received, on March 25, the largest-ever U.S. prison sentence for a hacker. The 28 year old, of Miami, Florida, was sentenced to 20 years in prison for leading a group of cybercriminals that stole tens of millions of credit and debit card numbers from TJX and several other retailers. He pleaded guilty in September to multiple federal charges of conspiracy, computer fraud, access device fraud and identity theft for hacking into TJX, which owns T.J. Maxx, BJ’s Wholesale Club, OfficeMax, Boston Market, Barnes & Noble and Sports Authority. He was facing up to 25 years in prison for these charges. He also pleaded guilty last year in two other pending hacking cases for which he is scheduled to be sentenced on March 26. He faces up to 20 years in prison for his role in hacking into the network of Dave & Buster’s restaurant chain and stealing credit and debit card numbers from at least 11 locations. As part of a third pending case, he faces between 17 and 25 years in prison for hacking into the payment card networks of Heartland, 7-Eleven and Hannaford Bros. supermarket chain to steal more than 130 million credit and debit card numbers. In a plea deal, his sentences will run concurrently to each other.

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