The court heard how the defendant helped orchestrate the intrusion of a port operator's computer systems by having a terminal employee insert a USB stick containing malware into a workstation. That single physical act opened the door to months of remote access. Investigators found a backdoor installed in September 2020 that stayed put into the following year, while chats show the defendant exploring the network and hunting for admin access.
The scale of the scheme sounds staggering. The Secret Service said that its agents seized more than 100,000 SIM cards and 300 SIM servers, spread across five different safe houses in or around the city. All were unoccupied, though authorities also seized 80 grams of cocaine, illegal firearms, as well a s computers and cell phones. One official who chose to remain anonymous told the New York Timesthat the network could send 30 million text messages per minute.