TJX hacking accomplice gets five years

TJX was one of the biggest hacks in recent history

A federal court judge has sentenced one of the men who helped Albert Gonzalez steal more than 90 million credit and debit card numbers from TJX and other retailers.

Damon Patrick Toey had already pleaded guilty to the charges of selling the credit card data on behalf of Gonzalez and of helping him break into computer systems. He now faces five years in prison.

Toey, who was sentenced in a federal court in Boston, will undergo three years of supervised release after serving his sentence, and was ordered to pay a $100,000 (£65,000) fine. He is the sixth US man to be sentenced for the crime.

Gonzalez was sentenced last month to two 20-year stretches in a federal prison. The sentence is the longest ever for computer fraud in the US and, even with remission for good behaviour, Gonzalez, now 28, will be pushing 40 when he is released, since the two sentences will run concurrently.

The hackers are believed to have broken into wireless networks and corporate databases, selling the stolen credit card details to Russian criminals and using the details to withdraw cash from victims' bank accounts.