FBI arrested a man in Miami in connection with what they said was a hacking scheme involving the resale of Internet telephone service. The suspects were said to have illegally tapped into the lines of legitimate Internet phone companies, saddling them with the expense of extra traffic, while collecting more than $1 million in connection fees.
The suspect Instead of buying access to other networks to connect his clients' calls, he payed about $20,000 to other man who was also arrested in Spokane, to create "what amounted to 'free' routes by surreptitiously hacking into the computer networks" of unwitting Internet phone providers, and then routing his customers' calls over those providers'.
To evade detection, they hacked into computers run by an unsuspecting investment company in Rye Brook, commandeering its unprotected servers to re-route phone traffic through them. These steps made it appear as if this company was sending calls to more than 15 Internet phone companies.
In all, more than 15 Internet phone companies, including the one in Newark, were left having to pay as much as $300,000 each in connection fees for routing the phone traffic to other carriers, without receiving any revenue for the calls, prosecutors said.
The suspect however, appears to have used the money he received from his customers to go on a spending spree, buying real estate in south Florida, a 40-foot Sea Ray Mercruiser motor boat, and luxury cars including a BMW and a Cadillac Escalade. Source: here
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