'Ultima Online' hacker arrested over 'house' sale, Taken from Stratics site Options

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'Ultima Online' hacker arrested over 'house' sale
Yomiuri Shimbun

The Metropolitan Police Department has arrested a 21-year-old man on suspicion of illegally accessing an Internet game server to sell a virtual "house" owned by a woman to another game participant for 50,000 yen, police said Thursday.

According to the MPD, Ryusei Sakano of Itabashi Ward, Tokyo, posed as a female game player he met online while playing "Ultima Online," a popular Internet-based game.

Sakano reportedly asked the game's system administrator to provide the female player's entry password on the pretext that she had lost her password to the game.

The police said Sakano then used the female player's password to illegally access the company's U.S. computer server for the game a total of seven times over a period of three months from September.

According to the MPD, Sakano took advantage of the fact that the game's virtual gold pieces--used by players as a virtual currency--can be traded through bulletin boards. He sold a virtual house belonging to the female player valued at 25 million gold pieces for 50,000 yen, the police said.