WASHINGTON — The Secret Service found and seized an illicit network of sophisticated equipment in the New York City region that was capable of shutting down the cellular network as foreign leaders prepared to gather nearby for the annual U.N. General Assembly, the agency announced Tuesday.
Officials said the anonymous communications network, which included more than 100,000 SIM cards and 300 servers, could interfere with emergency response services and could be used to conduct encrypted communication. One official said the network was capable of sending 30 million text messages per minute, anonymously. The official said the agency had never before seen such an extensive operation.
There is no specific information that the network, now dismantled, posed a threat to the conference itself, Secret Service officials said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation. The agency leads the security for the U.N. meetings this week.
The conference draws more than 100 foreign leaders and their staffs and has been described as the Super Bowl of spy games. The scale of the equipment discovered suggests the network could be part of a nation’s surveillance operation, experts said.
Initial analysis of the data on some of the SIM cards has identified ties to at least one foreign nation, as well as links to criminals already known to U.S. law enforcement officials, including cartel members, Secret Service officials told reporters Monday in a call previewing Tuesday’s announcement.
“We will continue working toward identifying those responsible and their intent, including whether their plan was to disrupt the U.N. General Assembly and communications of government and emergency personnel during the official visit of world leaders in and around New York City,” Matt McCool, the top agent at the Secret Service’s New York field office, said in a video statement recorded by the agency before the announcement.
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