Dutch Hacker Pleads Not Guilty in Seattle Court
A Dutch citizen yesterday pled not guilty to charges related to the theft of over 44,000 credit card numbers.
"David Benjamin Schrooten, aka 'Fortezza,' is being targeted by federal prosecutors for allegedly hacking into computers and stealing massive amounts of credit card numbers," writes CNET News' Dara Kerr. "Once he obtained the numbers, he allegedly sold them in bulk quantities via different Web sites. The 44,000 is reportedly from just one sale."
"The suspect, arrested in Romania in March, was indicted on 14 counts of conspiracy, bank fraud, aggravated identity theft, intentional damage to a computer, and access device fraud," writes Softpedia's Eduard Kovacs. "The federal indictment alleges Schrooten's scheme relied on the computer systems of commercial businesses and computer servers or networks of payment processors, which were hacked into and pilfered for valuable information," writes the Seattle Weekly's Matt Driscoll. "The indictment also alleges other carding websites were allegedly broken into, with databases containing stolen credit card numbers subsequently raided and the information sold on Schrooten's own carding websites.