A man who received a prison term for his participation in a Nintendo hacking scheme is now required to pay the firm 25–30% of his monthly wage until his debt is settled. It’s probably important (and quite ironic) to note that Bowser is the name of the adversary in this tale.
Playing Games
Gary Bowser, 53, was detained in October 2020 for his participation in Team Xecuter, a gang that produced and marketed chips that allowed users to hack video game devices like the Nintendo Switch and obtain games for free. The following year, he entered a plea of guilty to federal criminal charges, acknowledging at the time that he had marketed tools for hacking the portable Nintendo console. Bowser was given a sentence of 40 months in prison and asked to pay $14.5 million in restitution for his part in the fraud, but he has now been given permission to be released early.
Interesting Circumstances
Bowser explained that he was being freed early in an interview with YouTuber Nick Moses because of his age, his health problems, which limit his movement, and the fact that he was born in Canada. Despite having escaped from prison, he still owes a sizable sum to Nintendo, and he is now scheduled to return to the Toronto region. The hacker claims that of the $14.5 million owed to Nintendo by Bowser, only $175 has been paid so far. Bowser also owes Nintendo $10 million in reparations and a $4.5 million punishment.
Bowser has previously asserted that the ‘tens of millions of dollars in earnings’ that Team Xecuter made were not all that were paid to him. One of the group’s three members, a Chinese national, was never detained, and the third could not be extradited to the US, making him the only one of the three to be tried and convicted in the US. And due to his role, Bowser was initially accused of 11 offenses, including conspiracy to violate technological security, trafficking in circumvention devices, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, and conspiracy to launder money.