Canadian Gary Bowser was indicted in 2020 before being jailed last year for his involvement with a Nintendo hacking group called Team-Xecuter. The charges related to his role as a salesperson and promoter of Team-Xecuter's hardware and hacking tools, and Bowser pleaded guilty to his involvement. The US government requested a sentence of five years but, in probably the only bit of leniency Bowser received, he was jailed for 40 months in February 2022, and has now been granted early release 12 months later. He is currently in a US processing centre, and should be returned to Toronto in the next week.
But things are not going to end there. A large part of the case against Team-Xecutor was the financial damage it caused Nintendo, and the court slapped Bowser with an astronomical restitution amount totalling $14.5 million.
