20 years in prison for stealing credit card data

In one of the largest cases of credit card fraud in US history, a court in Boston, Massachusetts has sentenced the defendant to 20 years in prison. Albert Gonzales, the 28-year-old defendant, had admitted to breaking into the computer systems of major US online vendors and stealing the credit card details of millions of users.

As the Boston Globe daily newspaper reports, the US district judge's ruling remained below the 25 years of imprisonment called for by the prosecution, but nevertheless, the sentence was one of the longest prison terms for computer fraud in US history. An added twist to the story is that following an earlier arrest for data theft, Gonzales had worked as an informant for the US Secret Service in 2003.

(djwm)