burner phones, changing phone numbers and SIM cards<\/a> that were swatting American officials.\n <\/p>\n\n Yet, there was a real, legitimate and \u201cimminent threat\u201d the surge of swatting calls against high-ranking officials posed to the service\u2019s protective operations, said Matt McCool, the special agent in charge for the Secret Service New York field office.\n <\/p>\n
\n The Advanced Threat Interdiction Unit, along with a flurry of other law enforcement agencies \u2013 the Department of Homeland Security, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the New York Police Department, and other state and local law enforcement \u2013 began unraveling the web.\n <\/p>\n
\n It ended with the largest seizure of SIM servers and cards the Secret Service has ever seen.\n <\/p>\n
![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/signalphoto2.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
![\"Law](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/signalphoto3.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\n The new unit traced the swatting signals to an apartment just outside New York City. And they found another rented space. Then more.\n <\/p>\n
\n Inside, they found no one.\n <\/p>\n
\n But what they did find was a vast and stunning network of more than 300 SIM servers \u2013 capable of disabling cell phone towers and disrupting emergency services \u2013 all concentrated within 35 miles of New York City.\n <\/p>\n
\n Over the past few weeks, the Secret Service discovered more than 100,000 SIM cards across locations in the New York tristate area. Officials briefed on the investigation say the electronic safe houses were found in places like Armonk, New York; Greenwich, Connecticut; even in Queens, New York; and across the river in New Jersey \u2013 essentially forming a circle around New York City\u2019s cellular network infrastructure.\n <\/p>\n
\n The hidden electronic maze was so powerful, it could have sent an encrypted and anonymous text to every human being in the United States within 12 minutes, McCool said. Its strength could have overwhelmed cell towers, toppled New York City\u2019s cell service and stopped every Manhattan resident from being able to access Google Maps.\n <\/p>\n
\n To investigators, the operation appeared to be built for far more than just masking swatting calls \u2013 it was a massive communications exchange for spies, hackers and organized crime.\n <\/p>\n
\n The Secret Service hasn\u2019t announced any arrests connected to the operation. But its early forensic analysis suggests foreign governments and criminals in the US are using the network to run their organizations, McCool said.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cThat includes cartels, that includes human traffickers, that includes terrorists,\u201d he told CNN.\n <\/p>\n
\n The operation worked stealthily and unceasingly, with SIM cards being switched out quickly to keep federal law enforcement off its trail. The servers could be commanded remotely to create massive amounts of phone traffic.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cIt is absolutely well funded and well-organized,\u201d McCool said.\n <\/p>\n
\n The network has been taken down and is no longer a threat to New York, according to law enforcement officials.\n <\/p>\n
\n But, McCool cautioned, \u201cIt would be unwise to think that there\u2019s not other networks across the country.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n The Secret Service unit is continuing to work to identify other similar networks, he said.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cThe potential for disruption to our country\u2019s telecommunications posed by this network of devices cannot be overstated,\u201d US Secret Service Director Sean Curran said.\n <\/p>\n
\n CNN\u2019s Nicki Brown and Jeff Winter contributed to this report.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Facebook Tweet Email Link On Christmas Day 2023, a man called the suicide prevention hotline claiming he had…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":163862,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-163861","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163861","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=163861"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163861\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/163862"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=163861"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=163861"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=163861"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}