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11 Arrested in Theft of 41 Million Credit Card Numbers

by Tim Stevens on August 6, 2008 at 05:36 PM

11 Arrested in Credit Card Theft Ring
If you were wary of paying for anything with your credit card after reading about the millions of card numbers stolen from supermarkets, restaurants, or pretty much any other retailer, then you might be able to shop a little more calmly today. Federal prosecutors have rounded up 11 criminals around the world. Said folks are allegedly responsible for stealing a whopping 41 million credit cards.

The 11 were from primarily from the U.S. and former Soviet states, along with two more in China. The organizer was a Miami man named Albert Gonzalez, who is alleged to have the infiltrated wireless networks of various retailers in America, then helped his off-shore cohorts steal the numbers of shoppers.

Interestingly, Gonzalez was arrested for similar crimes back in 2003, but was avoiding jail time by helping investigators track down other identity thieves. Meanwhile he was perpetrating these crimes behind the investigators' backs. The trial has yet to begin, but we're thinking he won't be getting any favors when it comes to sentencing this time. [Source: The New York Times]

Tags: credit card, CreditCard, crime, identity theft, IdentityTheft, security

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