by James
8. February 2011 03:47
An online poker obsessive has pleaded guilty to stealing £7.4 million worth of chips and awaits sentencing.
Ashley Mitchell hacked into the Zygna online poker game and stole over 400 billion virtual poker chips before trying to launder them out through various Facebook accounts.
Before he was caught, Mitchell was able to sell around 30 per cent of his 400 billion chip stash. He charged £430 per billion chips and netted £53,000.
The incident happened in the summer of 2009 when Mr Mitchell pretended to be an administrator for Zygna games once he had hacked into their system.
However the poker game company quickly realized that something was amiss and set up a trap to catch him.
Having admitted that he has a gambling problem, Mr Mitchell pleaded guilty to the five charges of computer misuse brought against him in Exeter court, UK.
Mr Mitchell already has previous as he tried to hack into computers in a local council, an offence for which he was given a suspended sentence.
Now he has been remanded while a date for the sentencing is set up.
Speaking at his case Judge Philip Wassall said that Mr Mitchell would face the full weight of the law.