A US federal court has sentenced Canadian hacker Doug Bowser to 40 months in prison for his involvement in the Switch Team Xecuter hacking group, the Department of Justice. announced on thursday. Not to be confused with Nintendo of America president Doug Bowser (or Mario’s nemesis, for that matter), Bowser was part of a collective that developed and sold devices that people could use to play pirated games on their consoles.
The FBI arrested Bowser in 2020. A year later, he agreed to pay Nintendo $10 million to settle a civil privacy lawsuit and another $4.5 million in restitution to the company. Prior to today’s sentencing announcement, Bowser faced up to 10 years in prison. According to the Justice Department, video game publishers have lost more than $65 million thanks to Team Xecuter’s exploits. Homeland Security Investigations and the FBI are still working to arrest Bowser’s accomplices.
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