Hacker from Northumberland sentenced for stealing virtual gold
A hacker who used his position as a content developer to access high value customer accounts and steal their “game wealth”, which he sold for more than £300,000 on the black market, has been sentenced.
Andrew Lakeman, 32, of Harbour Road, Beadnell, has received a three-year jail sentence, suspended for two years.
Lakeman, formerly Jed Sanderson and known in the game world as ‘Mod Jed’, began working as a content developer for British gaming giant Jagex in November 2015. The company, which is based in Cambridge, is best known for its RuneScape series of games.
In May 2018, Jagex’s player support team noticed suspicious account recovery activity with valuable in-game items, including gold, being taken.
The activity stopped briefly, so the team initially put it down to a glitch in the system, but it began happening again later that year.
They realised the perpetrator was likely to be someone who worked for the company, as accounts were being recovered using information genuine owners would be unlikely to know.
Jagex began their own internal investigation, which included creating a curfew for account recovery and modifying the firewall. They made these changes without informing the wider company, so as not to alert the virtual thief.
The sting worked and the Jagex IT department were able to identify Lakeman’s devices and home address as the source of the illicit activity.
Bosses questioned Lakeman, who initially denied the allegations and claimed he had no idea how his devices were being linked to such activity, suggesting his account must have been compromised.
He was later dismissed by the company and the investigation handed over to Report Fraud (formerly Action Fraud), before being handed over to Cambridgeshire police in 2019.
Further investigations by officers revealed Lakeman had sold the virtual gold and valuable in-games items he had gained through dishonest means on the black market.
Searches of his devices and accounts revealed he had banked more than £364,829 in cash, which came from crypto currency dealers.
It also showed messages to his wife detailing how he intended to make a lot of money before leaving Jagex and he discussed high value RuneScape accounts worth tens of thousands of pounds.
After years of meticulous and complex investigation and evidence gathering, officers arrested Lakeman and charged him with unauthorised computer access with intent to commit other offences, theft by employee, conceal / disguise / convert / transfer / remove criminal property and acquire criminal property.
Lakeman later pleaded guilty to the offences and was handed a three-year sentence, suspended for two years, at Cambridge Crown Court on September 3.
He was also ordered to carry out 150 hours of unpaid work and complete a 25-day rehabilitation activity requirement. In addition, a proceeds of crime act timetable, due to conclude in February next year, aims to recoup the money Lakeman earned from the thefts.
Detective Constable Andrew McKeane, who investigated, said: “This was an incredibly complex and detailed investigation, and certainly not one you see every day.
“Lakeman was well aware what he was doing was wrong and the hundreds of thousands of pounds he gained from selling the in-game items is no different to any other theft.
“Just because it’s virtual, doesn’t mean he shouldn’t face the full force of the law.”