Fergie's Tech Blog

Off Beat: Hacker Made Vacancies in Hotel Guests' Accounts

Jay Weaver writes in The Miami Herald:

With a willing ex-wife as his partner in crime, a Colombian engineer's clever scheme to steal thousands of dollars from unsuspecting travelers worldwide went undetected for years.

Then Mario Alberto Simbaqueba Bonilla's high-tech computer crime spree accidentally attracted the attention of the Pentagon.

In spring 2006, Defense Department officials discovered someone had hacked into the personal financial accounts of 17 U.S. soldiers and fleeced their payroll deposits along with mortgage, car, and other payments. Investigators tracked the trail of electronic evidence to Simbaqueba.

On Wednesday, Simbaqueba, 40, pleaded guilty in Miami federal court to tapping into hotel business-center computers here and in other cities to swipe personal financial information from hundreds of travelers to pay for his lavish international lifestyle. Simbaqueba stayed in first-class hotels in places such as Hong Kong, Italy and Dubai, and bought expensive electronics, jewelry and clothing for himself and his many girlfriends.

The Defense Department employees were among more than 600 people -- mostly business travelers and college students -- whose identities were found on Simbaqueba's laptop computer, seized upon his arrest last August at Miami International Airport. His total take: between $400,000 and $750,000, prosecutors say.

Dozens of companies, including Chase Manhattan Bank, E*Trade, and American Airlines, ended up covering most of the victims' financial losses.

posted by Fergie @ 1/10/2008 12:27:00 AM