In the hacker jail that “hit” the Nintendo Switch

He was sentenced to 40 months in prison Gary Bowserwho at the end of 2021 together with Team Xecuter has violated the security system of the Nintendo Switchthe Nintendo 3DS and the NES Classic Edition.

His lawyers hacker were pushing for a 19-month sentence, the US government wanted five years, but the trial ended at three years and four months.

However, the 51-year-old, who has the same last name as Bowser, the historical villain of Super Mariowho pleaded guilty will have to pay a $ 4.5 million finebut also $ 10 million to settle the civil action with the Nintendo.

For the record, in the original trial Bowser admitted that he had been working with Team Xecuter since June 2013, with whom “Knowingly and voluntarily participated in a cybercrime operation that hacked popular game consoles” through devices such as the Gateway 3DS, Stargate, TrueBlue Mini and Classic2Magic.

As the trial documents reveal, Team Xecuter has made at least $ 10 million from the sale of devices that enable piracy, with Bowser making $ 320,000 a year. For its part, the team tried to defend itself, stressing that its devices were related to legal homebrew development, although they asked for an additional amount of money to unlock the possibility of using pirated copies.

It should be noted that the troubles for Team Xecuter started last October, when the government of USA issued federal charges against Bowser, 48-year-old Avignon Max Louarn, and 35-year-old Yuanning Chen, from Shenzhen, China.

So far, only Bowser has been arrested and deported to the United States when he was in the Dominican Republic. Louarn was arrested in Canada, from which the United States is seeking his extradition, while Chen is still at large.