A U.S. federal court has sentenced Canadian hacker Doug Bowser to 40 months in prison for his involvement in the Switch hacking group Team Xecuter, the Justice Department announced Thursday. Not to be confused with Nintendo of America president Doug Bowser (or Mario’s archenemy, 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, it 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 Department of Justice, video game publishers lost more than $65 million as a result of Team Xecuter’s exploits. Homeland Security Investigations and the FBI are still working to apprehend Bowser’s accomplices.
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