BY NIRVI SHAHnshah@MiamiHerald.com
The attorney for the accused mastermind behind the largest credit-card fraud case in American history said Monday's indictment was no surprise.
This week, federal prosecutors in New Jersey said Albert Gonzalez, 28, of Miami, outdid his own fraud record, stealing 130 million credit and debit card account numbers and selling them on the black market. Gonzalez had already been indicted with 10 others last year in Boston for allegedly stealing more than 40 million credit card numbers, which at the time was the largest fraud of its kind.
"This indictment out of New Jersey is nothing new,'' said Gonzalez's Miami attorney, Rene Palomino Jr. "We've known about it for the last several months.''
Palomino flew to New York on Tuesday to meet with his client. Gonzalez is awaiting trial there next month for allegedly helping hack the computer network of the Dave & Buster's restaurant chain.
After the trip, Palomino said he could not say much about the cases against his client.
"We're at a very delicate stage,'' Palomino said. "We're trying to resolve all of these cases.''
Federal prosecutors in New Jersey said Gonzalez had used a hacking method called "SQL injection'' to break into computer systems and steal financial records, then sent the data to computers in California, Illinois, Latvia, the Netherlands and Ukraine.
The credit and debit card numbers would then be printed on fresh cards and offered to thousands of buyers in cafes and nightclubs around the world.
Prosecutors called the case the largest credit and debit card data breach ``ever charged in the United States.''
Gonzalez, a Cuban American, turned informant in a 2003 credit card theft case in New Jersey, providing information to the Secret Service. Then, in 2007, federal agents said they had discovered that the man supplying them with details about fraud had continued stealing credit card information.
Monday, the man known in cyberspace as "soupnazi'' was charged alongside two unnamed defendants with targeting customers at 7-Eleven and the supermarket chain Hannaford Brothers. They are also accused of infiltrating the computers of a national credit card processing company.
Palomino flew to New York on Tuesday to meet with his client. Gonzalez is awaiting trial there next month for allegedly helping hack the computer network of the Dave & Buster's restaurant chain.
After the trip, Palomino said he could not say much about the cases against his client.
"We're at a very delicate stage,'' Palomino said. "We're trying to resolve all of these cases.''
Federal prosecutors in New Jersey said Gonzalez had used a hacking method called "SQL injection'' to break into computer systems and steal financial records, then sent the data to computers in California, Illinois, Latvia, the Netherlands and Ukraine.
The credit and debit card numbers would then be printed on fresh cards and offered to thousands of buyers in cafes and nightclubs around the world.
Prosecutors called the case the largest credit and debit card data breach ``ever charged in the United States.''
Gonzalez, a Cuban American, turned informant in a 2003 credit card theft case in New Jersey, providing information to the Secret Service. Then, in 2007, federal agents said they had discovered that the man supplying them with details about fraud had continued stealing credit card information.
Monday, the man known in cyberspace as "soupnazi'' was charged alongside two unnamed defendants with targeting customers at 7-Eleven and the supermarket chain Hannaford Brothers. They are also accused of infiltrating the computers of a national credit card processing company.
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