Ringleader gets jail in TJX data breach case

A Miami man was sentenced to five years in prison for his involvement in an identity theft ring that was tied to the data breach at TJX Cos., Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum said today.

TJX, the Framingham-based retailer that operates such chains as T.J. Maxx, Marshalls, HomeGoods, and A.J. Wright, disclosed in January that hackers broke into a system that managed credit card and debit card transactions, the attorney general's office said.

It is now believed that thieves were able to steal more than 45 million credit card and debit card numbers as a result of the breach; TJX has said that 75 percent of those cards were expired or had their data masked at the time of the theft.

The Miami man, Irving Escobar, was also ordered to pay nearly $600,000 in restitution for "leading the criminal operation that used personally identifiable information stolen from the TJX data breach," according to a press release from McCollum's office.

A criminal investigation conducted by the Gainesville, Fla., police department and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement revealed a complex operation that was using counterfeit cards with stolen credit card data; leading the operation, Escobar coordinated the use of these cards to purchase gift cards at Wal-Mart and Sam's Clubs, McCollum's office said.

A TJX spokeswoman issued a statement, "We continue to support the ongoing law enforcement efforts to bring the criminals who attacked our company to justice."
(By Chris Reidy, Globe staff)