US cyber criminal jailed for 20 years

US authorities have jailed a cyber criminal for 20 years in connection with a website that traded in stolen credit cards and identities.

The 22-year-old, David Ray Camez from Phoenix, Arizona, was one of the key members of the Carder.su website that was infiltrated and shut down by US law enforcement authorities in 2010.

The site has been linked to card crime that caused around $50m in losses by various card and payment firms, according to the BBC.

Camez was sentenced to a seven-year term initially, but this was extended after he was found guilty of breaking US racketeering laws.

He was also sentenced to three years of supervised release and ordered to pay $20m in damages.

Chat forums on the Carder.su site, which had 5,500 members, were used to recruit and educate people about cyber and card fraud, which led to the racketeering charges.

"Camez was a member of a vast criminal organisation that facilitated rampant cyber fraud throughout the world," said the US Department of Justice in a statement.

He is one of 39 people charged in connection with their involvement with Carder.su. Of those, 21 are also expected to face 20 years in jail for racketeering after pleading guilty.

Others face shorter jail terms for lesser offences.

The arrests were part of efforts by President Obama's Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force that was created in November 2009 to target financial crimes, according to azcentral.

Since the task force's creation, the Justice Department has filed more than 12, 841 financial-fraud cases.