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A Chicago man has pleaded guilty to wire fraud in connection with a scheme that used a phony Web site to steal credit card and account information from customers of Microsoft's MSN Internet service.

The plea agreement is the latest salvo in the government's stepped-up efforts against identity theft and so-called phisher Web sites. Such sites mimic legitimate Web sites and trick unsuspecting Internet users into divulging sensitive personal and financial information.

Admits Phishing

As part of a plea agreement, 21-year-old Matthew Thomas Guevara acknowledged that he set up a Web site, www.msnbilling.com, that was designed to harvest personal financial and account information. Guevara then sent e-mail from Hotmail accounts to MSN customers asking them to visit the site and update their MSN account information, according to a statement Friday from the U.S. Department of Justice.

Account and credit card information provided through msnbilling.com was actually forwarded to one of the e-mail accounts Guevara set up, the DOJ says.

Guevara will be sentenced on December 5 by a federal judge in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington in Seattle. He faces a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000, the DOJ says.

The plea agreement comes amid increased attention from law enforcement to the threat of online identity theft.

Other Efforts

In July, the FBI and ISP EarthLink issued a joint statement that warned consumers about an increase in phisher Web sites.

One month later, Atlanta-based EarthLink announced that it is suing a Vancouver spam ring. EarthLink alleges the spammers were using EarthLink e-mail accounts to support a phisher site targeted at America Online members.

The FBI reports a "steady increase" in complaints to its Internet Fraud Complaint Center about the phony Web sites. The Federal Trade Commission said that identity theft has been the number one consumer complaint reported to the agency for the last three years.

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