Florida woman jailed 22 months for trafficking stolen Microsoft COA labels

Heidi Richards, 52, of Brandon, Florida, was sentenced to 22 months in US federal prison and fined $50,000 after being convicted of conspiring to traffic in illicit Microsoft Certificate of Authenticity (COA) labels.

Richards and her employees harvested product key codes from tens of thousands of COA stickers, typed the codes into Excel spreadsheets, and sold the keys in bulk to customers. Federal law prohibits selling COA labels separately from the license and the hardware they are meant to accompany.

The trafficking occurred between July 2018 and January 2023, and Richards's company wired $5,148,181.50 to a Texas-based supplier during that period. The indictment lists multiple bulk purchases over roughly five and a half years, with the largest purchase approximately $100,000, though the total profit from the resale was not specified.

With Richards sentenced and the scheme unravelled, the resale operation appears to have been disrupted.

United States, Brandon, Florida

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