(NEW YORK) — Secret Service agents believe they have cracked a plot that could have crippled the telecommunications network — and law enforcement functions — in the nation’s largest city as more than 150 world leaders descend this week on New York, officials said on Tuesday.
“The potential for disruption to our country’s telecommunications posed by this network of devices cannot be overstated,” Secret Service Director Sean Curran said in a statement.
Agents were first tipped off last spring, and officials believe the plot is connected to the Chinese government, according to one law enforcement source briefed on the probe.
The threat was uncovered as part of the Secret Service’s normal work of protecting the president, his family and key administration officials, the source said.
The agency declined to specify how the plot was uncovered, but a law enforcement official briefed on the case said agents stumbled onto it while investigating threats to three people, including one with direct access to President Donald Trump.
No one has been arrested yet, officials said. The probe is ongoing.
Agency officials said they were reluctant to discuss key details because of the ongoing investigation as well as international sensitivities, given the fact that they believe a foreign government was apparently involved.
Secret Service personnel along with officers from the New York Police Department and other federal agencies said they seized hundreds of servers and more than 100,000 cellphone SIM cards in multiple locations around the New York metro area.
The Secret Service is still working to determine what all of the equipment was meant to do and whether there was a specific target. There was enough equipment to send 30 million anonymous texts per minute — more than enough to bring the region’s interconnected phone systems to its knees, according to the Secret Service.
It was not clear that the equipment was supposed to be triggered either during the United Nations General Assembly or in connection with it, officials said. Investigators said they do not believe there is a direct threat to the gathering, but in the current climate of fear caused by wars around the world and political violence in the United States, Secret Service officials said they would not be taking any chances. Investigators are also looking into the possibility that there are other locations.
The UNGA kicked off Monday at the United Nations headquarters on the East Side of Manhattan. Trump is scheduled to address the gathering Tuesday. The gathering concludes on Sept. 29.
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