US carder gets 14 years

A man who pleaded guilty on 4 April to one count of wire fraud and one count of aggravated identity theft was sentenced in a US District Court to 14 years in prison.

Tony Perez III, 21, stood accused of running a business online that sold counterfeit credit cards embedded with account information purloined from various sources.

The sentencing announcement was made on Friday.

Perez used a number of online identities in underground discussion groups which facilitated a market for stolen financial account information, according to court documents.

US Secret Service special agents discovered machinery capable of making counterfeit credit cards and 21,000 stolen credit card numbers and other ancillary data stashed in his computers and email accounts, when they served a search warrant and raided Perez's apartment in June last year.

In addition, credit card companies have tracked more than US$3 million in fraudulent transactions using card numbers found in Perez's possession, court documents said.

The case was investigated by the US Secret Service and was prosecuted by the Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section of the Justice Department's Criminal Division and a Special Assistant US Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia.

This article originally appeared at scmagazineus.com