An investigation into an international telephone hacking conspiracy, which was jointly launched in 2006 by the FBI and Italian law enforcement, has resulted in eight arrests and three indictments stateside. In the U.S. alone, the compromised networks resulted in 12 million minutes of telephone calls valued at more than $55M USD.
Arrests made in phone system hijacking with alleged ties to terrorism. (IMG: A homemade PBX by Markus Wandel.)
Each of the individuals arrested is accused of hacking into the telephone systems of large corporations and entities in the United States (and abroad) and selling information about the compromised telephone systems to Pakistani nationals residing in Italy.
At the same time the indictments were unsealed in the U.S., an FBI statement outlined that Italian law enforcement authorities conducted searches of approximately 10 locations in four regions of Italy and arrested the financiers of the hacking activity.
Italian police have said that those arrested, five in all, were the financiers of the operation. Mohammad, Zamir (40) and Kanwal Shabina (38), both of whom were arrested in Italy, owned and operated call centers in the country. To increase their profits, Zamir and Shabina made efforts to incur as little cost as possible in routing their customers’ telephone calls to the intended call-recipient.
They recruited Mahmoud Nusier (40), Paul Michael Kwan (27), and Nancy Gomez (24) -- named in the U.S. indictments -- to compromise various telephone networks so that calls would then be transmitted over the hijacked networks, ensuring large profits and scant overheads.
The FBI has said that Nusier, Kwan, and Gomez would identify the type of PBX system used by each compromised company and take it over by launching brute force attacks, or simply by using the default passwords still in place. They were paid about $100 USD for each compromised telephone system.
The three were arrested in 2007 in the Philippines in relation to the U.S. investigation. At the time of their arrest, they were found with dozens of notebooks full of the telephone numbers and access codes of over 2,500 victim corporations in the United States, Canada, Australia, and Europe.
“This was an extensive and well-organized criminal network that worked across continents,” said acting U.S. Attorney Ralph J. Marra, Jr. “The hackers we’ve charged enabled their conspirators in Italy and elsewhere to steal large amounts of telecommunications capacity, which could then be used to further or finance just about any sort of nefarious activity here or overseas.”
One of the named victims, AT&T, was not compromised, according to the FBI, but did carry some of the long-distance calls. In addition to a conspiracy count each, all three of the defendants have been charged with two counts of unauthorized access to a computer system for purposes of committing fraud, and with the possession of unauthorized access devices, including passcodes to U.S. telephone systems.
Already, there are allegations of ties to terrorism because of this case, according to an Associated Press report.
According to the AP and Carlo De Stefano, head of Italy's anti-terrorism police unit, much of the proceeds were sent to the Philippines and may have been forwarded to Islamic extremist groups in the region, including Al-Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf.
“There are strong suspicions and some clues, but nothing concrete,” De Stefano said on Monday. He would not elaborate, the AP report said.
Law enforcement agencies in Italy, Spain and Germany are investigating the money trail, but so far there is no solid evidence to suggest terrorism as the main reasoning for the indicted crimes.
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