Nintendo Switch hack seller Bowser gets 3 years in prison

According to the U.S. Department of Justice, Gary Bowser was sentenced for more than three decades in prison to his involvement in Team Xecuter’s hacking scheme.

Bowser was a Canadian national and is not related to Doug Bowser, the Nintendo of America president. Bowser will be serving 40 months imprisonment. The DOJ characterized Bowser as a “prominent leader” in the group, someone who helped develop and sell devices used to hack video game consoles — including the Nintendo Switch. Bowser was detained in 2020. He also agreed to pay $10 million for hacking devices. This is on top of his three year sentence. Bowser was sentenced to three years in prison for his involvement in the scam in 2021.

This group includes more than 12 people around the world. According to DOJ, they are responsible for designing devices that can bypass security features on consoles, giving users free access to games.

“This piracy scheme is estimated to have caused more than $65 million in losses to video game companies,” U.S. Attorney Nick Brown said in a statement. “But the damage goes beyond these businesses, harming video game developers and the small, creative studios whose products and hard work is essentially stolen when games are pirated.”

Bowser claimed that he was paid $1,000 per month to distribute hacking tools to retailers. The DOJ’s press release Thursday said he managed Team Xecuter’s websites and created “online libraries of pirated videogames for its customers.”

The DOJ has charged two other Team Xecuter members — Max Louarn of France and Yuanning Chen of China — but neither are in custody, according to the press release. This case is still being investigated by Homeland Security Investigations (FBI)