Featured Image Credit: YouTube/NickMoses05 / Wachirawit Iemlerkchai / Alamy Stock Photo
Topics: Gaming, Technology, Money
Emily Brown
Topics: Gaming, Technology, Money
A man who was sentenced to prison for his role in a Nintendo hacking scheme now has to pay the company 25-30 percent of his salary every month until he pays off his debt.
Oh, and it's probably worth noting that the bad guy in this story is called Bowser. Honestly, you can't make these things up.
Gary Bowser, 53, was arrested in October 2020 for his involvement in Team Xecuter; a group which created and sold chips which hacked video game consoles, including the Nintendo Switch, and allowed customers to get games for free.
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He pleaded guilty to federal criminal charges the following year, admitting at the time that he had sold tools which hacked the portable Nintendo console.
Bowser was sentenced to 40 months in prison and requested to pay $14.5 million for his involvement in the scheme, but he's now been granted an early release.
In an interview with YouTuber Nick Moses, Bowser explained some of the reasons he was being released early was due to his age, health issues which limit his mobility, and the fact he was born in Canada.
He's now set to return to the Toronto area, but while he might have escaped from behind bars, he certainly hasn't escaped the huge debt he owes to Nintendo.
Bowser owes Nintendo $10 million (£8m) in restitution as well as a $4.5 million (£3.6m) fine, and of that $14.5 million, the hacker says he's so far only managed to pay off $175 (£141). No, that's not a typo. There aren't meant to be any extra zeroes.
Bowser believes he won't have to 'worry' about the $4.5 million fine when he returns to Canada, but said he has an agreement with Nintendo that the company can take chunks of his salary to pay off the $10 million he owes them.
The amount he's paid so far has come from $25 (£20) monthly instalments taken from his income from a job in the prison library, but with a pretty hefty chunk left to pay, Bowser is set to be coughing up the cash for the rest of his life.
He told Moses: "The agreement with them is that the maximum they can take is between 25 to 30 percent of your monthly gross income. And I have, like, six months before I have to start making payments.”
Bowser has previously claimed that he only received a small fraction of the 'tens of millions of dollars of proceeds' that Team Xecuter earned.
He was the only one of the three members of the group to be tried and convicted in the US - another member, a Chinese national, was never arrested, and the third was not able to be extradited to the US.
Bowser was initially charged with 11 felonies for his involvement, including wire fraud, conspiracy to circumvent technological measures, trafficking in circumvention devices, and conspiracy to commit money laundering.
UNILAD has contacted Nintendo for comment.