Original URL: https://www.theregister.com/2011/09/09/carder_sentenced/

Man sentenced to 14 years for mass credit card theft

$3 million in losses

By Dan Goodin

Posted in Security, 9th September 2011 23:48 GMT

An Indiana man was sentenced to 14 years in prison for selling counterfeit payment cards that caused more than $3 million in losses.

Tony Perez III, 21, received the sentence on Friday, five months after pleading guilty to one count each of wire fraud and aggravated identity theft. He was also ordered to forfeit more than $2.8 million in proceeds and pay a $250,000 fine.

In his plea, Perez admitted he ran on online operation that sold payment cards encoded with stolen account information. He frequented underground carding forums, where he received stolen credit card information.

When the US Secret Service raided his apartment in June 2010, they found data for 21,000 stolen credit cards and equipment needed to encode them onto blank cards. Credit card companies said losses from the card numbers in Perez's possession topped more than $3 million.

More from the Department of Justice is here. ®