Scam That Relies on Telecom Insiders

This article first appears on Blomberg
In May 2021, about 100 employees of an unnamed phone company received an unsolicited text message, according to court records.
The sender, who isn’t named, had an offer: In exchange for cash, would the staffers leverage their access to the phone company’s internal systems to help them hijack customer phone numbers?
Some of employees informed higher-ups about the texts, and eventually the FBI’s Newark field office became aware. But one employee who received the messages, Corrine Little, allegedly didn’t tell her bosses. In fact, over a 13-day period, Little communicated with phone numbers associated with the scammer, known as a SIM swapper, at least 53 times, according to the Justice Department.
The phone company audited Little’s activity to find she conducted multiple authorized SIM swaps, a process where a phone number is transferred to a new phone without the owner’s knowledge or consent, according to court records. In an interview with the FBI, Little denied performing the SIM swaps, but said she received multiple $600 payments from the unknown texter via CashApp, records show.