U.S. Secret Service disrupts telecom network that threatened NYC during U.N. General Assembly

Source: CBS News

September 23, 2025 / 7:00 AM EDT


The Secret Service has disrupted a sprawling telecommunications network in the New York tri-state area that investigators say posed a serious potential disruption to New York's telecom systems and a possible threat to the United Nations General Assembly meetings this week.

In the largest seizure of its kind, the U.S. Secret Service announced Tuesday that the agency found active SIM farms at abandoned apartment buildings located at more than five sites. In total, law enforcement discovered 300 SIM servers – over 100,000 SIM cards – enabling encrypted, anonymous communication and capable of sending 30 million text messages per minute. Officials say the servers were so powerful they could have disabled cell phone towers and launched distributed denial of services attacks with the ability to block emergency communications like EMS and police dispatch.

"This network had the potential to disable cell phone towers and essentially shut down the cellular network in New York City," U.S. Secret Service Special Agent in Charge Matt McCool said in a video released by the agency.

An official briefed on the investigation told reporters that this week, the sophisticated network "could text message the entire country within 12 minutes," later adding, "This was well organized and well funded." Telephonic threats to multiple senior U.S. officials this past spring – including multiple people protected by the Secret Service – first triggered the investigation, but officials say the network was seized within the last three weeks.

Read more: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/u-s-secret-service-disrupts-telecom-network-threatened-new-york-city-u-n-general-assembly/