United States Attorney Stephanie A. Finley announced in a press release Wednesday that an Opelousas man was sentenced to a year and one day in prison for using a computer to steal money, hacking computers to obtain passwords and attempting to sell information on the online hacking forum known as “Darkode.”

Rory Stephen Guidry, 29, known online as k@exploit.im, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Dee D. Drell on one count of obtaining information by computer from a protected computer.

He was also sentenced to three years of supervised release. According to the Feb. 5, 2016 guilty plea, in July of 2014 while living in Liberty Hill, Texas, Guidry participated in an online hacking attack on a server in Austin, Texas.

“Cybercrime threatens anyone and everyone in our ever-increasingly internet-connected world,” Finley stated. “Computer criminals will not be able to hide or maintain their anonymity, and they will be prosecuted locally, nationally and internationally. Through coordinated responses and international cooperation of our law enforcement partners, defendants such as Mr. Guidry who are involved in computer hacking forums will see their organizations dismantled and individuals prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”

Guidry moved to his grandparents’ home in Opelousas in March of 2015 after an investigation ensued as a result of the server attack.

While in Opelousas, Guidry is alleged to have hacked into personal computers and controlled them with malware.

Guidry allegedly attempted to hack into and control more than 5,000 computers and to sell the botnet to another hacker on the forum.

The botnet is a cluster of stolen computers often used to perform often criminal tasks like break into credit card accounts. Finley said Guidry also stole more than $80,000 in bitcoins, an online currency, and converted some of it to money.

Guidry also admitted to hacking another computer to take more than 5,000 active credit card accounts. He was in possession of the credit card numbers and personal identifiers when he was arrested by the FBI.

In July of 2015, the Department of Justice and other agencies dismantled Darkode. Criminal charges relating to the forum were filed in the Western District of Louisiana, the Western District of Pennsylvania and elsewhere against 12 individuals.

Darkode was an online, password-protected forum in which hackers and other cyber-criminals convened to buy, sell, trade and share information, ideas and tools to facilitate unlawful and unauthorized intrusions on computers and electronic devices.

Before becoming a member of Darkode, prospective members were allegedly vetted through a process in which an existing member invited a prospective member to the forum for the purpose of presenting the skills or products that he or she could bring to the group.

Darkode members used each other’s skills and products to infect computers and electronic devices of victims around the world with malware. They would then gain access to, and control over, those devices.

The takedown of the forum and the charges were announced on July 15, 2015 as a result of the FBI’s infiltration of the forum’s membership.

Twenty nations participated in the coordinated effort of law enforcement to charge, arrest or search 70 Darkode members and associates around the world, Finley said in the release.