Fla. man in credit card data theft accepts plea

Palomino said Gonzalez was a self-taught computer genius whose interest in technology turned into an addiction. In 2003, Gonzalez was arrested for hacking but not charged because authorities said he became an informant, helping the Secret Service hunt other hackers.

But Gonzalez continued to use his talents in the shadowy online world of data mining. Over the next five years, authorities said, Gonzalez continued to hack into the computer systems of Fortune 500 companies even while providing assistance to the government. A judge allowed him to move from New Jersey back to Florida in 2004, and court documents alleged that Gonzalez hacked into the national restaurant chain Dave & Buster’s.

Gonzalez lived a lavish lifestyle during that time, buying his girlfriend a Tiffany diamond ring, throwing a $75,000 birthday party for himself, and considered investing in a nightclub. Gonzalez allegedly dubbed his hacking operation: “Get Rich or Die Tryin’.”

Court records also show that he gave his father and two of his friends Rolex watches, along with amassing some $2.8 million. He bought a Miami condo and a blue BMW.

In May of 2008, federal authorities arrested Gonzalez while he stayed with his girlfriend at the luxurious National Hotel on Miami Beach. Agents seized $22,000 in cash, lots of computer equipment and a Glock 9 mm handgun from his hotel room.

Indictments in New York and Massachusetts said that Gonzalez and two foreign co-defendants used hacking techniques that involved “wardriving,” or cruising through different areas with a laptop computer and looking for retailers’ accessible wireless Internet signals. Once they located a vulnerable network, the hackers installed “sniffer programs” that captured credit and debit card numbers as they moved through a retailer’s processing computers — then tried to sell the data overseas.

Gonzalez was in the process of negotiating a plea agreement on those charges when, on Aug. 17, 2008, the U.S. Attorney’s office in New Jersey brought additional charges against him. Prosecutors said he targeted customers of convenience store giant 7-Eleven Inc. and supermarket chain Hannaford Brothers Co. Inc. He also targeted Heartland Payment Systems, a New Jersey-based card payment processor.

In the most recent indictment, authorities said Gonzalez and his cohorts used a different technique to hack into corporate networks and secretly place “malware,” or malicious software, that would allow them backdoor access to the networks to steal data later.

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