Guerrilla Black arrested on stolen credit card charges

Remember that rapper a few years ago that sounded an awful lot like The Notorious B.I.G. and could even pass for a younger brother or close cousin of the deceased rapper? Well, he's been locked up over stolen credit card charges. Hip Hop Wired reports:

Rappers need to get their lives together, because the feds don't play. Compton rapper, Guerilla Black, born Charles Williamson, was arrested Thursday (July 12) on charges of credit card fraud. U.S. Attorney Jenny A. Durkan announced that the 33-year-old, known for his vocal likeness to the Notorious B.I.G., was taken into custody on a 22-count indictment from the Western District of Washington.

Black is accused of purchasing the stolen cards which were retrieved by hacking into computer systems, in two Seattle area business establishments. 

“Today's arrest shows that criminals cannot hide in cyberspace.  We will prosecute all parts of the criminal gang – regardless of where they may be,”  said Drukan. “I commend the cyber investigators of the Secret Service Electronic Crimes Task Force for making sure that all the participants — from the hackers to the end purchasers of stolen data — are held accountable.”

Aside from Black,  22-year-old David Benjamin Schrooten of the Netherlands, and Christopher A. Schroebel, 21, of Keedysville, Maryland, were named as co-conspirators and have been indicted and arrested for hacking into computers to obtain the credit card information.

An investigation concluded that customers had their credit car information stolen within minutes of making purchases at a local restaurant and a supply company. Black communicated with his cohorts via email, requesting to purchase “dumps” of stolen cards in “bulk.” Clearly very picky about his criminal activity, Black indicated that he wanted “freshly stolen” numbers to make it harder for customers to realize what was going on.

The list of charges he faces include conspiracy to access protected computers to further fraud, two counts of accessing a protected computer without authorization to further fraud, and six counts of access device fraud.

He was scheduled to make his initial appearance in a Los Angeles court sometime today.