Lithuanian hacker "Dr. Smurf" pleads guilty to identity theft
Share with others:
A Lithuanian citizen who tried to sell credit card information and operated on the Darkmarket Internet crime forum under the moniker "Dr. Smurf" pleaded guilty to identity theft in federal court in Pittsburgh Tuesday.
Tadas Petrauskas, 23, who lives in Brick, N.J., hacked into computer systems and took credit card information, which he then sold through the Darkmarket website, according to a 2008 indictment. That year, he sold to an unnamed Western Pennsylvania buyer the user names and passwords of employees of a data-hosting center, potentially enabling the buyer to access information on some 10,000 customers, the indictment said.
FBI agents got a search warrant for the email accounts of "Dr. Smurf" and gathered evidence, then caught him at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York after he disembarked from a flight from Belgium. A search of his laptop revealed "a large amount of credit card numbers belonging to other individuals," according to an affidavit filed in the case.
Mr. Petrauskas is to be sentenced Oct. 30; the maximum sentence is five years in prison.
First Published July 4, 2012 12:00 am
