Who Is the Boy Genius?
Nestled near a row of sultry, silvery-green palm trees and an infinity pool, room 1508 at the National Hotel on South Beach is a portrait of Art Deco luxury. It is also where, on May 7, 2008, federal agents seized two computers, $22,000 in cash and a Glock 9 gun from a man known on the internet as “soupnazi.” It was later revealed to be Gonzalez, who for months sat in a jail cell in Sunset Park, awaiting trial in Brooklyn federal court for allegedly hacking into business computer networks and stealing credit and debit card accounts — and in an embarrassing twist, he had once been an informant for the U.S. Secret Service. For Gonzalez, perhaps the worst part about being imprisoned is that he is without a computer. He has access to a computer only when his lawyer visits, to review evidence for his trial. Industry analysts marveled at the scope of the operation — which Gonzalez allegedly dubbed “Get Rich or Die Tryin’.” One compared it to a hackers’ version of the 1980s gangster movie “Sc
