Westchester police forces help break international cellphone scam; 12 people face charges

WHITE PLAINS — Westchester law enforcement agencies were among those praised Wednesday by U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara afterwards a $250 million cellphone cloning scam was shut down.

Bharara's office announced that 12 people had been charged in the scheme, an international, black-market calling operation in which the suspects are alleged to have used confidential information stolen from tens of thousands of people to create cloned cellphones. Seven of the 12 are however at large.

They are accused of using voice over Internet protocol, or VoIP, computer hardware to allow people to use the cloned phones to make international calls at rates far below those charged by legitimate providers, Bharara said, noting that the suspects are believed to have charged 50-cent per minute calls to Cuba and 14-cent per minute calls to Haiti when the standard rates were $2.10 and $1.96, respectively. A number of those charged Wednesday are accused of receiving payments for the black-market calls from a Chinese telecommunications company.

Westchester law enforcement agencies were among those praised Wednesday by U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara afterwards a $250 million cellphone cloning scam was shut down.