Cell phone 'cloning' along border brings fraudulent calls
If you've spent any time along the Texas-Mexico border recently and have a cell phone, you might want to check your bill for fraudulent calls.
The phones are not being stolen at gunpoint but rather their identities are snatched out of the air, as border crooks use small electronic radio scanners to intercept cell phone transmissions. Later, they use the encoded information to "clone" a second phone, billing their calls to the account of the phone that was scanned.
Some customers only learn of the fraud when their monthly cellular bill lists hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars worth of international calls.
The cloning is occurring in the Rio Grande Valley, Laredo and El Paso, say knowledgeable sources, who believe that Mexican drug traffickers are involved in the phone cloning.
"It's a problem on the Texas-Mexico border. Is it a major problem? You'd have to ask the wireless carriers," said a Washington official of the Federal Communications Commission, who asked not to be identified.
Cell phone company investigators suspect that in many instances the cloned phones are being used by drug dealers in Mexico to conduct illicit business without fear of phone records being scrutinized. The magnitude of the problem is hard to gauge, since cell phone companies and their trade association would not release specifics.
Additionally, they believe low-level drug transporters -- known as mules -- are gathering cell phone numbers during drug deliveries in border towns as well as along well-frequented trafficking routes. The theory is fueled by clusters of customers in interior Texas cities along highway routes, such as Lubbock and Amarillo, who suddenly see charges for fraudulent calls appear on their accounts.
If you have the right equipment, cloning a cell phone is surprisingly easy. That just might explain why your cell phone bill is $1500 and why all of those international calls to porn lines were on it.
