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Hacker Indicted of Wire Fraud & Identity Theft Charges

A resident of San Francisco has been sentenced to 40 years imprisonment and $1,500,000 penalty for accessing financial organizations to purloin credit card details.

The 35-year-old Max Ray Butler was apprehended on September 5, 2007 in San Francisco on a charge registered in Pittsburgh. On September 11, 2007, he was charged with identity theft and wire fraud involving up to 40 years imprisonment and a $1,500,000 penalty.

As per the authorities, the accused, also called Iceman, Darkest, Digits, and Aphex, was behind a 'major criminal organization' targeting computers to purloin identification and other confidential details.

Within the 16-month probe period of United States Secret Service, detectives established Butler's association with the Cardersmarket site, which he supposedly operated to assist his associates rob data and convert them into functional credit cards, the testimony said.

Eyewitnesses told Feds they had witnessed Butler change hotels from where he employed a powerful antenna to tap wireless transmissions. He apparently accessed financial organizations and credit card dispensing hubs through them for capturing secret card details.

In his affidavit, an accomplice informed the detectives that he had unlawfully got unlimited credit card information from Butler, often over 1,000 per month.

As per the affidavit, Butler purportedly directed an accomplice to purchase 23 credit card accounts worth $480. The data contained account numbers, expiry dates, card types, and the concerned banks. An eGold account was utilized to make the payment.

When the fraudsters got the card details, they either marketed it or utilized it to produce fake cards that they utilized for in-store shopping. According to detectives, the goods were then traded on their account in eBay (EBAY).

Detectives informed that they had also taped Butler interacting with two secret informers who were associates of Cardersmarket. They usually utilized private cyber chat rooms or sent messages through AOL's Instant Messaging system.

The court indicted Butler in May 2001 after he confessed guilty of establishing an automatic infringement program for breaching PCs of the armed forces and defense contractors. Butler confessed to masterminding the program, which left a trap door on these PCs to penetrate them in future.

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