NEW YORK - The FBI arrested a man in Miami Wednesday for allegedly hacking the networks of Internet telephone service providers to fraudulently sell more than 10 million minutes of calls, federal authorities said.
FBI agents early Wednesday executed nine search warrants in six states related to the case, and arrested Edwin Andres Pena in one of his Miami residences, U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie said in a statement.
"Emerging technologies and the Internet represent a sea of opportunity for business, but also for sophisticated criminals," Christie said. The challenge, he said, "is to stay ahead of the cyber-criminal and protect legitimate commerce."
Pena, a legal U.S. resident from Venezuela, received more than $1 million through a scam that provided his customers deeply discounted telephone rates, a two-count complaint filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in New Jersey said.
Pena was expected to appear before a magistrate judge in Miami federal court Wednesday, Christie said. The complaint charged him with wire fraud and a computer hacking violation from November 2004 to about May.
Another criminal complaint identified Robert Moore as a professional hacker from Spokane, Washington, who Pena hired to gain user names and passwords to unauthorized routers. Reports said that Moore also was arrested.
Pena secretly hacked into the computer networks of unwitting Internet telephone services, known as Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), Christie said.
A Newark, New Jersey-based company, which transmits VoIP services for other telecom businesses, was billed for more than 500,000 unauthorized telephone calls. (Additional reporting by Sinead Carew.)
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