A former Microsoft worker was yesterday jailed 21 months for mail fraud offences involving the sale of stolen software.

Wilson Delancy, 36, of Maple Valley in Washington, was also ordered to pay $4 million in compensation to Microsoft. He was convicted of acting as a middleman in the sale of stolen SQL Server packages obtained from another Microsoft employee, Kori Robin Brown.

Delancy set up fake charities to which Brown dispatched software exploiting loopholes in the software giant's ordering regime.

Brown, a former administrative assistant in the company's Xbox group, was jailed for 17 months last November for her involvement in the scam.

Illicit goods were dispatched by mail so both Brown and Delancy were charged and ultimately convicted of mail fraud, a serious US Federal crime.

The duo's scam was uncovered as part of a wider probe of theft of Microsoft software at its Redmond headquarters carried out last year.

Microsoft has hired investigators and revamped its internal ordering system to prevent future scams. ®

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