The cache, made up of more than 300 SIM servers packed with over 100,000 SIM cards and clustered within 35 miles of the United Nations, represents one of the most sweeping communications threats uncovered on U.S. soil.
When agents entered the sites, they found rows of servers and shelves stacked with SIM cards. More than 100,000 were already active, investigators said, but there were also large numbers waiting to be deployed, evidence that operators were preparing to double or even triple the network’s capacity, McCool said. He described it as a well-funded, highly organized enterprise, one that cost millions of dollars in hardware and SIM cards alone.
The operation had the capability of sending up to 30 million text messages a minute, McCool said.