AT&T, the world’s largest telecommunications firm, lost over $200M after a fraudster unlawfully unlocked 2 million phones to defraud.
- A Pakistani fraudster was sentenced to 12 years in prison for his leadership role in a seven-year scheme for a conspiracy to “unlock” phones from AT&T’s network.
- Two AT&T workers who played smaller roles in the conspiracy were sentenced to probation.
AT&T, the world’s largest telecommunications firm, lost over $200M after a fraudster unlawfully unlocked 2 million phones to defraud.
“Beginning in 2012, Fahd, 35, conspired with others to recruit AT&T employees at a call centre located in Bothell, Washington, to unlock large numbers of cellular phones for profit," said the Department of Justice (DOJ).
Fahd enrolled AT&T employees as insiders by bribing them with significant sums of money to remove the carrier's security that locked cellular phones to its network.
In April 2013, AT&T introduced a new unlocking system that made it harder for the bribed employees to unlock IMEIs for Fahd.
The fraudster was urged to hire a malware developer to design malicious tools that prevented corrupt employees from unlocking phones on his behalf.
“Fahd also had the employees install malware on AT&T’s computers that captured information about AT&T’s computer system and the network access credentials of other AT&T employees, continues the DOJ.
Fahd gave the information to his malware developer, so the developer could tailor the malware to work on AT&T’s computers.
AT&T discovered that 1,900,033 cellular phones were illegally unlocked by conspirators behind this scheme, resulting in $201,497,430.94 of losses due to lost payments.
The company sued former employees after finding they were bribed into illegally unlocking phones and seeding malware and malicious tools on its network.
In February 2018, Fahd was arrested in Hong Kong, and he was extradited to the U.S. in August 2019.
U.S. District Judge Robert S. Lasnik for the Western District of Washington pointed out that Fahd had executed a terrible cybercrime over an ample period, even after he was mindful that law enforcement was investigating.
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