14 DAY TRIAL // An IT expert pleaded guilty to charges stemming from the theft of virtual poker chips from social game developer Zynga and their reselling on the black market.
Ashley Mitchell, 29, of Little Park Road, Paignton, UK, stands accused of four counts of converting criminal property and one count of obtaining unauthorised access to a computer with intent to commit an offence.
He admitted to breaking into Zynga's systems by impersonating one of the company's online administrators and using the unauthorized access to send over 400 billion virtual poker chips to several Facebook accounts he set up in advance.
He then sold the poker chips to other players at significantly discounted rates. The man earned around £53,000 (almost $86,000) from selling a third of his capture.
Had he managed to push all of the chips on the black market, the thief would have racked £184,000 ($298,000). Zynga estimates the value of the stolen poker chips at $12 million at the normal rate practiced by the company.
After pleading guilty in Exeter Crown Court on Tuesday, Judge Phillip Wassall told the IT expert that a jail term was inevitable.
Mitchell was already on a 40-week suspended prison sentence for hacking into the computer system of Torbay Council in order to pay himself benefits.
"The considerable amounts involved and the expertise it took for this crime to happen as well as the fact that you did it while already subject to a suspended sentence for the same offence lead me to this conclusion," the judge said, according to Small World News Service.
Mitchell's lawyer said the offences came at a time when the IT expert was battling a gambling addiction that made him spend £3,000 a month on online poker. He proposed that his client pays back the £184,000 over the next two years, as he now earns a six-figure salary from Gambino Poker.