A participant of a cybercrime contest, hacker, Albert Gonzalez, stole millions of credit and debit card numbers. Gonzalez was sentenced to 20 years of imprisonment by US District Court on Friday.

Ganzalez, 28, had been residing in Miami during the time of the crimes in three cases, which took place over a period of 2 years before his arrest in May of 2008 and after that was accused in New York, New Jersey and Massachusetts. Gonzalez led a ring that hacked into a lot of computer networks of chief sellers which included TJX, DSW, Barnes & Noble, Office Max and Dave & Buster's.

Gonzalez stole money with the debit and credit card numbers and also made withdrawals with some of the cards from ATM’s and further distributed millions of numbers to other illegal people. Prosecutors stated it as a ‘consummate online pilfering’.

According to Assistant U. S. Lawyer Stephen Heymann and Defense Lawyer Martin Weinberg, the case before Judge Woodlock was different from what had been heard from Judge Saris.

Gonzalez pleaded guilty of committing the crime and said that he was totally responsible for his actions.