James Delahunty
7 Feb 2011 3:44
A man is facing jail time for stealing thousands of pounds worth of virtual pokers chips from an online poker website.
Ashley Mitchell admitted in court to stealing more than 400 billion virtual chips after breaking into the systems of Zygna, an online gaming outlet. The 400 billion virtual chips had a face value of about $12 million (£7.4 million).
Mitchell had managed to gain £53,000 from the theft by selling the stolen virtual chips using a series of online accounts on social networking sites. He charged £430 per 1 billion virtual chips.
He posed as an administrator for the Zynga Poker game between June and September of 2009, before he gained access to the company's computer systems and carried out the electronic theft.
After realizing the amount of chips that had gone "missing", Zynga set up a sting which tracked down Mitchell. He pleaded guilty to five charges brought under the Computer Misuse Act and the Proceeds from Crime Act. He was remanded until a date was fixed for sentencing.