Hacker Albert Gonzalez Sentenced In Largest Identity Theft Case Ever
The TJX identity theft case is the largest in history. After years of investigations, hacker Albert Gonzales has been sentenced to 20 years in prison for causing untold identity theft nightmares.
It was the winter of late 2006 when some disturbing rumors started circulating. There had been a huge hack and theft of identities at a major retailer. The rumors were pretty wild, but the truth was much worse when the truth finally came out. A major retailer had not been hacked. Instead, a group of them under one corporate umbrella had and the numbers were staggering.
The corporate group was TJX Cos. Never heard of it? It's brands include TJ Maxx, Marshalls, Office Max, BJ's Wholesale Club and others. The hack had involved the placement of a modular software program that copied all the credit and debit card transactions process by the stores through the central processing system and then fired them off to an external server. The numbers were staggering. Over 40 million credit cards were copied. That equates to roughly 1 for every 8 people in the United States. Total losses were in the $200 million dollar range.
It took many people to pull of the scam. The center of it all was Albert Gonzales, a 28 year old high school graduate who has a story that could only come out of Hollywood. Gonzales was a known hacker in computer circles, but also to the government. In fact, the FBI hired him as a criminal information in 2003. It paid him $75,000 a year to report on what other hackers were doing and, of course, assumed Gonzales would not be up to anything on his own. Au contraire!
Once the heat started applying after the hack, the parties involved fell apart like a house made of playing cards. Gonzales eventually was caught and pled to the charges against him. Facing 25 years in jail, the judge instead ordered a 20 year term and forfeiture. The forfeiture includes $1.65 million in cash, a 2006 BMW, a Miami condominium, three Rolex watches and a couple computers. It hardly makes a dent in the $200 million lost during the scam.
At long last, the nightmare of the TJX identity theft case has finally come to an end. For customers who are still fighting the theft of their identities, the battle goes on and on and on.