Original URL: https://www.theregister.com/2000/03/06/sicilian_couple_win_270k/

Sicilian couple win £270k from Net gambling…

...using hacked credit cards

By Drew Cullen

Posted in On-Prem, 6th March 2000 11:55 GMT

A Sicilian couple 'won' £270,000 from betting on an online lottery -- using stolen credit cards. Apart from the fact that the money wasn't theirs to spend in the first place, the odds don't look particularly healthy. Electronic systems expert Guiseppe Rossi, 34, and Sandra Elazar, 33, spent £500,000 on their gambling spree. Winnings were laundered through several bank accounts, some overseas. They also did their bit for e-commerce retailing, ordering clothes watches and thousands of books which were, curiously, mainly German novels. The couple are accused of hacking into computers to gain credit card numbers. And they have been charged with the illegal use of credit cards. Most were issued by two American banks: Chase Manhattan and Citibank Universal MC Card. Rossi and Elazar's gambling spree torpedoed the online lottery service. It was forced to shut down, after a "banking service became suspicious about the large volumes of bets being placed", Metro reports. ®