Secret Service Dismantles Telecom Network Near UN; Foreign Links

The U.S. Secret Service dismantled a clandestine telecom network within 35 miles of the United Nations ahead of the U.N. General Assembly, seizing more than 300 co-located SIM servers and roughly 100,000 SIM cards. Officials warned the system could have been used to disable cell towers, jam 911 centers, carry out denial-of-service and mass “smishing” attacks, and reportedly had the capacity to send millions of texts per minute while enabling anonymous encrypted communications among criminal groups and nation-state actors. The operation, led by the Secret Service’s Advanced Threat Interdiction Unit and coordinated with DHS, DOJ, ODNI and the NYPD, is conducting a forensic review of the devices. Authorities said preliminary links to foreign actors and individuals known to federal law enforcement have been found, but have not publicly identified any implicated nations and no arrests have been announced. Officials said there is no publicly confirmed specific plot against the U.N. General Assembly but described the network as an imminent threat to protective operations for senior U.S. officials and framed the takedown as a preventive measure as more than 140 world leaders, including President Trump, convened in New York.