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California Rap Artist Sentenced to 9+ Years for Bank Fraud, ID Theft
A California rap artist who performed under the name ‘Guerilla Black’ was sentenced to 110 months in prison and five years of supervised release for a scheme to use credit card numbers stolen in Seattle in other states.
Charles Tony Williamson, 36, of Torrance, California, was on the user end of the fraud involving hacks of point of sale credit card processing at businesses in Seattle and Shoreline, Washington, and at various businesses across the U.S. Williamson purchased credit card numbers in bulk from a hacker based in Maryland and from various ‘carding’ websites so that he and his associates could use them for fraud.
Between January 11, 2011 and February 26, 2012, Williamson received and possessed at least 27,257 stolen credit card numbers, including cards issued by American Express, Visa, MasterCard and Discover. The total number of stolen card numbers exceeds 30,000 following Williamson’s criminal conduct during the period of his pretrial release.
Federal law allows for a formula to determine the scope of the fraud by attributing a loss of $500 per credit card number, resulting in an estimated fraud loss in this case of $15 million.
Undeterred by his first arrest and indictment, Williamson continued to direct platoons of co-schemers to use stolen credit card numbers and continue his digital crime spree, said U.S. Attorney Jenny A. Durkan.
U.S. District Judge Ricardo S. Martinez said, ‘The impact of the crime is tremendous …from the banks and small businesses’ to the runners who now have felony records.
Key Facts
- State: Washington
- Category: Fraud & Financial Crimes
- Source: DOJ Press Release â†â€â€
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