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.
Between February 14 and 20, a poll conducted by the Berkeley Institute of Government Studies and The Los Angeles Times asked 7,512 registered voters about Harris running for President if Biden decided not to seek a second term. It found that 59 per cent of registered voters were hesitant about Harris seeking the country's highest office.
Singh pleaded guilty to six conspiracy charges, including conspiracy to commit wire fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering and conspiracy to violate federal campaign finance laws. The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) charged Singh for his role in a multi-year scheme to defraud equity investors in FTX.
She moved to the US after graduating from India. Her husband, Mudambi S. Srivatsa, said she had big dreams, and wanted to give her family the best things possible. A fundraiser has been set up to manage the cost of services to transport her body to Mysuru for her last rites.
The BBC report said that the 38-year-old accused will first have to appear in court in the state of Victoria, before being moved to Queensland where the crime took place. He will then face a magistrate in Brisbane, probably later this week, before being remanded in custody.
The Air Canada crew found one litre bottle of Bacardi and a water bottle containing a liquid smelling strongly of alcohol with Patel. The crew confiscated the bottles as according to the Civil Aviation and Safety Authority, airline passengers can only consume alcohol provided by cabin crew during a flight.
Nearly a quarter of all international students in Britain are from India, and Indian investment into the UK supports 95,000 jobs across the UK. The UK Immigration Statistics, published in August 2022, showed that nearly 118,000 Indian students received a student visa in the year ending June 2022 -- an 89 per cent increase from the previous year.
