A plot to cripple the telecommunications infrastructure – discovered in New York City as world leaders gathered for the United Nations General Assembly – has proven far more extensive than initially believed, with federal agents discovering an additional 200,000 SIM cards in New Jersey, on top of the 100,000 SIM cards and other equipment already seized.
Homeland Security Investigations has now secured approximately 300,000 SIM cards and hundreds of servers from six vacant offices and apartments across the New York metropolitan area and New Jersey. The equipment originally found in New York was capable of transmitting 30 million anonymous text messages per minute, enough to overwhelm cellular networks, jam 911 systems, and black out communications citywide.
“The potential threat these data centers pose to the public could include shutting down critical resources that the public needs, like the 911 system, or potentially impacting the public’s ability to communicate everything, including business transactions,” said Donald Mihalek, an ABC News contributor and former Secret Service official.
Federal agents are working to identify who rented the locations and orchestrated the operation. No arrests have been made. The U.S. Secret Service has characterized the plot as China-linked.