The Secret Service has disrupted a sprawling telecommunications network in the New York Tri-State Area that investigators say posed a serious potential disruption to New York’s telecom systems and a possible threat to the United Nations General Assembly meetings this week.
In the largest seizure of its kind, the U.S. Secret Service announced Tuesday that the agency found active SIM farms at abandoned apartment buildings located at more than five sites. In total, law enforcement discovered 300 SIM servers – over 100,000 SIM cards – enabling encrypted, anonymous communication and capable of sending 30 million text messages per minute. Officials say the servers were so powerful they could have disabled cell phone towers and launched distributed denial of services attacks with the ability to block emergency communications like EMS and police dispatch.
“This network had the potential to disable cell phone towers and essentially shut down the cellular network in New York City,” U.S. Secret Service Special Agent in Charge Matt McCool said in a video released by the agency.
An official briefed on the investigation told reporters that this week, the sophisticated network “could text message the entire country within 12 minutes,” later adding, “This was well organized and well funded.”
Telephonic threats to multiple senior U.S. officials this past spring – including multiple people protected by the Secret Service – first triggered the investigation, but officials say the network was seized within the last three weeks.
“We cannot share which officials were targeted out of concerns for their privacy, but as the forensics investigation continues, we do expect that we will find more targeted officials once we get through that data,” McCool said.
Early analysis shows the network was used for communication between foreign governments and individuals known to U.S. law enforcement, including members of known organized crime gangs, drug cartels and human trafficking rings, according to multiple officials briefed on the investigation. The U.S. Secret Service says it is combing through the more than 100,000 SIM cards in an ongoing, exhaustive forensic analysis.
“Each SIM basically has the equivalent data of a cell phone. So we’re working through every call, every text, every search made on those SIM cards,” an official told CBS News, adding, “Early analysis indicates that this network was used for communication between foreign governments and individuals that are known to federal law enforcement here in the U.S.”
The equipment was found within 35 miles of the United Nations in New York, ahead of the U.N. General Assembly. Investigators also found 80 grams of cocaine, illegal firearms, plus computers and phones.
“This isn’t a group of people in a basement playing a video game and trying to play a prank,” one official said. “This was well organized and well funded.”
“The timing, the location, the proximity of this network had the potential to impact the U.N. and that was clear and something that we had to consider,” added McCool.
The investigation was launched by a new division within the U.S. Secret Service established by Director Sean Curran and dubbed the “Advanced Threat Interdiction Unit,” in conjunction with Homeland Security Investigations.
“These devices no longer pose any threat to New York,” an official said. “We’ve taken care of and dismantled that threat…There is currently no credible threat against the UN.”
Still, another official added that “it would be unwise to assume” there aren’t other such networks in the U.S.
The investigation remains ongoing, according to the U.S. Secret Service. There have been no arrests yet, but officials said, “there could be arrests down the road,” adding that “from an operational perspective, we want those behind the network to know that the Secret Service is aware and that we’re kind of coming for them.”
Homeland Security Investigations is leading the criminal investigation into individuals involved in coordinating this large scheme, while the U.S. Secret Service is running down threats tied back to its protectees, according to multiple U.S. officials.
In a statement released by the U.S. Secret Service, the agency also thanked the Department of Justice, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the NYPD, as well as other state and local law enforcement partners, for providing technical advice and assistance.
