What you need to know
- A man has been sentenced to 54 months in prison over an Apple Pay fraud conspiracy.
- 30-year-old Daniel Butler pled guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and aggravated identity theft in May.
- Butler and three others stole the information of over 477 credit cards.
A man has been jailed for more than four years in Florida, over a fraudulent Apple Pay scheme worth over $1.5 million.
Daniel Butler, a 30 year-old-man from Miami, Florida has been sentenced to 54 months in federal prison, after pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and aggravated identity theft in May this year.
According to the DOJ, Butler and three other individuals fraudulently obtained the information for at least 477 credit cards, linking them to Apple Pay on their iPhones. Butler, along with Johnny Wesley (24), Rachel Bishop (27) and Laurent Louise (31), all from Miami, used their iPhones to make fraudulent purchases at various retailers using the stolen card information.
Because there's no limit to Apple Pay transactions, the group was able to make more than $1.5 million in fraudulent purchases.
Of the group, Wesley was previously sentenced to four years in federal prison in December 2018, the remaining co-conspirators will be sentenced in December of this year.
It's reported by 9to5Mac that the group contacted various banks posing as account holders in order to obtain the necessary information required to setup Apple Pay. The fraud dates as far back as 2015, and the group was able to take advantage of weak ID checks made by the bank.
Stephen Warwick has written about Apple for five years at iMore and previously elsewhere. He covers all of iMore's latest breaking news regarding all of Apple's products and services, both hardware and software. Stephen has interviewed industry experts in a range of fields including finance, litigation, security, and more. He also specializes in curating and reviewing audio hardware and has experience beyond journalism in sound engineering, production, and design.
Before becoming a writer Stephen studied Ancient History at University and also worked at Apple for more than two years. Stephen is also a host on the iMore show, a weekly podcast recorded live that discusses the latest in breaking Apple news, as well as featuring fun trivia about all things Apple.
