The secret services disrupted a large telecommunications network in the New York Tri-State region which, according to investigators, posed a serious potential disruption for New York telecommunications systems and a possible threat to meetings of the United Nations General Assembly this week.
In the greatest seizure of its kind, the American secret services announced Tuesday that the agency had found SIM farms active in abandoned abandoned buildings located on more than five sites. In total, the police discovered 300 SIM servers – more than 100,000 SIM cards – allowing encrypted and anonymous communication capable of sending 30 million text messages per minute. The officials say that the servers were so powerful that they could have deactivated mobile phone tricks and launching denials of services distributed with the possibility of blocking emergency communications such as EMS and police dispatch.
“This network had the potential to deactivate cell phone tricks and essentially close the cellular network in New York,” said Matt McCool, a special American secret service agent, in a video published by the agency.
An informed official of the survey told journalists that this week, the sophisticated network “could send an SMS to the whole country within 12 minutes”, adding later: “It was well organized and well funded”.
Telephone threats for several senior US officials last spring – including several people protected by the secret services – first launched the survey, but officials say that the network has been seized in the past three weeks.
“We cannot share which civil servants have been targeted by concerns for their privacy, but as the forensic investigation continues, we expect us to find more targeted civil servants once we have succeeded,” said McCool.
Early analysis shows that the network has been used for communication between foreign governments and known individuals in the application of American laws, including known organized criminal gang members, drug cartels and human trafficking rings, according to several managers informed of the investigation. American secret services indicate that it crosses the more than 100,000 SIM cards in a continuous and exhaustive forensic analysis.
“Each SIM essentially has the equivalent data of a mobile phone. So we work on each call, each text, each research carried out on these SIM cards,” said a manager at CBS News, adding: “Early analysis indicates that this network has been used for communication between foreign governments and individuals who are known to the application of federal law here in the United States”
The equipment was found at less than 35 miles from the United Nations in New York, before the United Nations General Assembly. Investigators also found 80 grams of cocaine, illegal firearms, as well as computers and phones.
“It is not a group of people in a basement by playing a video game and trying to play a farce,” said an official. “It was well organized and well funded.”
“The moment, the location, the proximity of this network had the potential to have an impact on the UN and it was clear and something we had to consider,” added McCool.
The survey was launched by a new division within the American secret services established by the director Sean Curran and nicknamed “Advanced Threat Prohibition Unit”, in collaboration with the surveys on internal security.
“These devices are no longer threats to New York,” said an official. “We have taken care and dismantled this threat … There is currently no credible threat to the UN.”
However, another official added that “it would be un reigning to suppose” there are no other networks of this type in the United States
The survey remains in progress, according to American secret services. There has not yet been an arrest, but the officials said: “There could be arrests on the road”, adding that “from an operational point of view, we want those behind the network to know that the secret services are aware and that we come in a way for them”.
Homeland Security Investigations conducts the criminal investigation into the people involved in the coordination of this large program, while the American secret services go up the threats linked to its protectors, according to several US officials.
In a statement published by the American secret services, the agency also thanked the Ministry of Justice, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the NYPD, as well as other local and premises of the law, for providing advice and technical assistance.
