HUDSON COUNTY — Nine former employees of the national cell phone company, Sprint, (four of whom are from Hudson County towns) have been charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, access device fraud, and aggravated identity theft for their alleged roles in a $15 million cell phone cloning scheme.
“The company has been assisting authorities in this case,” a representative from the company said in a statement on Friday afternoon. “As this is an ongoing investigation, it would be inappropriate for Sprint to comment further at this time.”
According to published reports, two West New York residents, a Weehawken resident, and a Jersey City resident were allegedly involved with the scheme that took place in stores nationwide, including one in North Bergen.
The nine defendants allegedly used Sprint’s computer network to obtain confidential information about the cell phones of thousands of customers without authorization to create “clones” of the cell phones which were then used to make unauthorized calls.
A representative from Sprint declined to comment on how exactly the company discovered the illegal activity was taking place but said that the company regularly monitors and “works aggressively” to identify and respond to fraudulent activity.
According reports, in total the defendants accessed customer accounts over 16,000 times without authorization and calls made with their cell phone clones racked up approximately $15 million worth of calls, including a large volume of international calls.
As for how the accounts of any customers whose information was accessed without information were affected by the scheme, the representative from Spring would only speak in general terms.
“Sprint strives to address fraudulent activity before customers are affected and in cases where this activity does occur, the company encourages customers to reach out,” he said. “After we determine fraudulent calls were placed on an account, the customer will not be held responsible for any related charges. Should a Sprint customer notice this sort of suspicious activity on their account, we would encourage them to contact our care representatives for assistance.”