Gary "GaryOPA" Bowser, known as the leader of thenotorious Switch hacking group Team Xecuter, has been arrested on 11 felony counts in 2020.
And one of his victims, Nintendo, is filing a civil lawsuit against the hacker in a Seattle federal court.
The suit seeks significant monetary damages and disgorgement of all profits from Team Xecuter's sale of the piracy-enabling SX OS software, and the line of hardware devices that use various exploits to install the OS software on Nintendo Switch units.
The lawsuit alleges that "at one point, the SX OS was pre-installed on 89% of modded/hacked Nintendo Switch products available for sale."
It also calls out Bowser as "one of only a handful of key members of Team Xecuter," and that he is "the closest thing to a public face for the team of coders and foreign manufacturers that made up the [Team Xecuter] supply chain."
In promoting and selling SX OS, Bowser "worked with a network of developers; established a distribution chain of resellers, testers, and websites; and designed the marketing and content of other public-facing websites for Team Xecuter," the suit alleges.
This lawsuit has been filed by Nintendo of America and its President, Doug Bowser, saying that Doug the hacker and his team had infringed on Nintendo's copyright by creating and selling Nintendo Switch hacking devices.
This lawsuit aims to charge Bowser with two trafficking counts and one copyright violation.
According to Bowser from Nintendo, Bowser the hacker runs an "international pirate ring" that sells these Switch hacking devices.
With the hacking devices that are designed to circumvent Nintendo's security measures, people can easily run pirated Switch games.
It has been reported that Team Xecuter has been involved in the console hacking scene since the days of the original Xbox, and has been creating and selling Nintendo hacking devices since at least 2013, with the Nintendo 3DS.
With the lawsuit, Nintendo wants Bowser to pay for monetary damages that equate to $2,500 for each trafficked device and $150,000 for each copyright violation.
What's more, Nintento also wants Bowser to give up his control of the Team Xecuter website and its URLs, and to also hand over every SX OS hacking device in his possession.
Nintendo is taking this case seriously, as it's part of its plan to stop the "serious, worsening international problem" of piracy.
In the lawsuit, Nintendo states that Bowser's actions "continue to put more than 79 million Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch Lite consoles at risk from piracy."
It should be noted that Bowser the hacker, a Canadian citizen arrested in the Dominican Republic, was arrested alongside his two accomplices: Max Louarn from Avignon, France; and Yuanning Chen who operated out of Shenzhen, China, that according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
The three were arrested despite the fact that thet "regularly used encrypted means of communication" such as Signal, Telegram, and PGP, and "developed a variety of techniques to mask and protect servers under the enterprise's control."
Nintendo is known to have no tolerance for those who are looking to infringe its copyright.
Back in 2018, Nintendo was awarded $12 million following its lawsuit against two ROM hosting sites.
In 2020, it sued a TikTok influencer and OnlyFans star over Pokémon branding and merchandise. On that same year, Nintendo has also won an injunction for a lawsuit targeting an Amazon reseller.
