How does organised crime impact the Telecommunications industry globally?

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Organized crime affects the telecommunications industry in nearly every region of the world, both by targeting telecom companies and by exploiting telecom networks to facilitate other criminal activities. The impacts are financial, operational, cybersecurity-related, and societal.

The exploitation of telecoms networks for criminal purposes isn’t limited to certain geographical areas, and the complexity of the crimes or the size of the organisation is not defined by a country’s economic standing.

In this blog, we will be discussing the different types of telecoms crime perpetrated and what the industry is doing to combat it.

North America

Mexico

Mexico is the most heavily documented region for cartel-driven telecom interference. Drug cartels are actively attacking, highjacking, and co-opting telecommunications infrastructure primarily in Mexico and across parts of Latin America. Rather than just destroying equipment, cartels systematic target telecom infrastructure to conduct their operations.

These are the various ways in which they operate:

“Narco-Antennas” and Shadow Networks

Cartels regularly hijack physical cell towers. Armed cartel members force their way into facilities or threaten technicians to install their own repeaters, antennas, and solar panels. This creates private, encrypted radio networks spanning hundreds of miles across multiple states. This allows them to coordinate unhindered drug shipments.

Monopoly Wi-Fi Extortion

In some states, cartels have built makeshift internet networks using stolen or rigged commercial equipment. Local cartels have destroyed or blocked legitimate internet signals, forcing thousands of local residents and business owners to buy the cartel’s Wi-Fi network. The monthly rates are grossly inflated, and the punishment for non-payment can be death.

Technician Coercion and Kidnapping

Field technicians working for major providers are routinely threatened, held at gunpoint, or kidnapped. Cartels then coerce them to install, repair, or maintain illicit infrastructure. They have also been forced to work as internal informants.

CCTV and Camera Hijacking

As well as physically attacking municipal and commercial surveillance cameras. Digitally hacking allows them to build a counter-surveillance apparatus to monitor military and federal police movements.

US Border

The US Border is also a place of interest for cartels as it provides a platform to target the American digital telecom ecosystem. Activities include:

SIM Box Fraud and Tower Overloading

A massive cartel-linked electronic network operating hidden tech facilities near cell towers was recently discovered and dismantled by the US Secret Service. Crime syndicates deploy thousands of illegal SIM cards and SIM servers to mask communications. This gives them the ability to overwhelm local cell towers, disrupt emergency services, and bypass surveillance.

Border Drone Jamming

To shield smuggling routes along the US-Mexico border, cartels have used signal-jamming equipment to attack or intercept US Customs and Border Protection drones.

United States of America

Supply Chain Vulnerabilities in American data centres

Driven by the Ai race, organized crime rings are increasingly targeting the data centre supply chain. This marks a shift in focus from traditional retail goods to the physical infrastructure powering the artificial intelligence boom.

What are the vulnerabilities?

In-transit: The massive growth of data centre construction across North America means an incredible influx of valuable materials is in transit. Criminals are exploiting the trend by intercepting high-value shipments and robbing development sites before the facilities are even built.
Active Construction Sites: Developing properties span many acres and often rely on basic security fences, leaving heavy equipment and raw copper spools exposed during off-hours.

According to recent reports, North American cargo theft losses surged to nearly $725 million, marking a 60% jump in value per incident.

What’s behind this wave of thefts?

The theft of copper is directly related to the value of the mineral due to global supply constraints. Servers, RAM, and massive spools of industrial copper wire are now the target of choice for organised crime. In a recent heist, five million dollars’ worth of copper and electronics were stolen through a highly coordinated scheme that involved the hijacking and theft of a number of lorries.

SIM farms

What are SIM farms?

SIM farms are industrial-scale electronic setups holding hundreds or thousands of mobile SIM cards. They are used by criminals to bypass carrier networks and commit large-scale telecommunications crime.

What crimes do you enable?

Mass Smishing & Spam: Capable of blasting out thousands of malicious scam text messages or robocalls per second to defraud consumers.
Bypassing Security: Used to bypass standard two-factor authentication (2FA) and flood platforms with automated fake “verified” profiles.
Untraceable Operations: Route illegal communication through “grey routes” to conceal criminal identities from law enforcement.
High-Level Security Threats: Advanced operations have been linked by intelligence agencies to organized crime, drug cartels, and covert communications.
Active Construction Sites: Developing properties span many acres and often rely on basic security fences, leaving heavy equipment and raw copper spools exposed during off-hours.

What actions have been taken to counter their use?

Although SIM farms are prevalent in the United States of America, there are significant concentrations of them in eastern Europe, UK and Australia.

United Kingdom

In the UK, the government advanced legislation under the Crime and Policing Act to explicitly ban the unsanctioned possession and supply of SIM farm hardware to shut down mass-text scam operations.

Europe

Europol have dismantled major syndicates (such as the “SIMCARTEL” bust) that utilized thousands of active SIM boxes to power tens of millions of fraudulent accounts.

USA

As well as Security agencies shutting down operations, there are federal laws to prohibit and prosecute the crime gangs running them.
These include the following acts – Wire Fraud (18 U.S.C. § 1343, Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA – 18 U.S.C. § 1030), Theft and Aggravated Identity Theft (18 U.S.C. § 1028A).

Central and South America

As major Mexican cartels are expanding their alliances, the pandemic of telco crime has spread into nations like Ecuador, Colombia, and Peru.
By franchising their methods to local gangs, the proliferation of tried and tested structural attacks, extortion, and criminal annexation is slowly making its way down through the continent.

Europe

SMS Blasters

In March 2025, the mobile phones of commuters and inhabitants in Greater London started jumping network, and they were then bombarded with suspicious-looking SMS messages. Officers from the Dedicated Card and Payment Crime Unit (DCPCU) were alerted, and an investigation began into an elaborate and ingenious scam.

What are SMS Blasters?

An SMS blaster in the UK is an illegal, portable fake mobile phone mast used by criminals to broadcast fraudulent phishing text messages directly to nearby mobile phones.

How do SMS Blasters Work?

Fake Cell Tower

The device mimics a legitimate network mast, often hidden in a backpack, car, or suitcase.

Forced Connection

Nearby mobile phones automatically connect to the stronger, fake local signal.

Mass Smishing

Fraudsters beam out thousands of scam texts—such as fake parcel delivery alerts or bank warnings—containing malicious links without needing phone numbers.

Key Enforcement Actions and Sentences

Over the last year there have been arrests in London where members of Chinese crime gangs and co-opted operators have been sentenced and imprisoned for supplying articles for use in fraud, and 24 months for conspiring to commit fraud by false representation.

Cryptophone network

What are Cryptophones networks?

Cryptophone networks—such as EncroChat, Sky ECC, and ANOM—are specialized, highly encrypted communication platforms heavily utilized by organized crime groups to coordinate global drug trafficking, money laundering, and violent offenses.

How do Criminals Use Cryptophones?

Devices were typically customized Android phones with removed components like cameras, microphones, and GPS chips to prevent physical tracking.

They have hidden operating systems, which means phones have a dual-boot system that allows users to enter a secret PIN to access a private chat interface.

Phone handsets have an Anti-Forensics feature, which includes a panic button, remote-wipe capabilities, and duress codes designed to instantly delete all data if compromised by police.

How was the network cracked?

In June 2020, as part of Operation Venetic, French and Dutch authorities hacked the EncroChat server network, allowing police across Europe and the National Crime Agency in the UK to read millions of real-time messages. Following EncroChat’s closure, similar takedowns targeted platforms like Sky ECC and ANOM with support from Europol, resulting in thousands of arrests, tons of seized drugs, and hundreds of millions in recovered cash.

What impact did this make?

Over 6,500 arrests and nearly €900 million in seized assets and cash across Europe. In the UK, the National Crime Agency investigation has resulted in thousands of arrests, high-profile convictions, and centuries of combined jail sentences for major drug and firearms traffickers.

Africa

As well as suffering from the same issues as every other territory, the most widespread criminal endeavour in Africa is financial and revenue fraud.

SIM Box Fraud

What is Sim Box Fraud?
Criminals use multi-SIM devices to reroute international calls through local channels, dodging official international gateways and tariffs. A recent raid in South Africa conducted by INTERPOL under Operation Red Card led to 40 arrests and the seizure of over 1,000 fraudulent SIM cards tied to a single operation. SIM Box Fraud costs the continent over $1.5 billion annually in leaked revenue for mobile operators and lost tax collections for governments.

Mobile Money and SIM Swaps

How devastating is SIM swap fraud?

SIM swap fraud accounts for roughly 43% of all mobile money fraud across Africa, making it the single largest threat to the continent’s rapidly expanding digital wallet ecosystem. A recent INTERPOL report highlighted that mobile money fraud remains the most prevalent scam, affecting 97% of responding African countries with severe financial impact. In 2025, Kenya saw a 327% surge in SIM swap attacks.

How does SIM swap fraud work?

There are 5 stages to the execution of the fraud, these include:

Fraudsters harvest the victim’s name, ID number, and phone number using phishing, leaked databases, or social media.
Criminals then use AI to build“synthetic identities”—merging real personal data with fabricated elements to bypass basic security.

The fraudster then walks into a mobile agent shop with a fake ID or bribes a corrupt telecom insider to process a “lost SIM” replacement.
The victim’s phone immediately loses its network signal. The fraudster’s phone becomes active with the victim’s number, intercepting all One-Time Passwords (OTPs) and USSD confirmation codes.
Fraudsters instantly reset mobile banking passwords, transfer funds, or take out instant mobile loans under the victim’s name.

Data and Airtime Theft

What is Data and Airtime Theft?

Using hidden malware in rogue apps that come pre-installed, sophisticated syndicates infiltrate internal carrier platforms to steal high-value data bundles and credit.

What is it costing the operators?

In a recent crackdown in Nigeria, Police arrested six suspects for hacking a major telecom firm’s core network, diverting £4.3million worth of airtime and data to thousands of prepaid lines.

What is the telecoms industry doing to combat crime?

The global telecommunications industry is actively fighting telecom-enabled crime and its doing this in several ways:

Technology and Network Defense

AI and Machine Learning: Nearly 75% of carriers are using machine learning models and AI to analyse live call and messaging patterns. This automatically blocks billions of suspicious texts and robocalls.

Call Validation Protocols: Implementation of frameworks like STIR/SHAKEN and ITU signalling standards to cryptographically sign and verify caller IDs, stopping international number spoofing.

API Integration: Initiatives like the GSMA Open Gateway allow real-time cross-checks for SIM swaps and number verification, protecting mobile banking users.

Cross-Sector and International Cooperation

Regulatory Compliance: Adopting stricter Know Your Customer (KYC) rules for business messaging aggregators and enforcing limits on bulk pay-as-you-go SIM card usage.

Fraud Sector Charters: Major providers (such as BT EE, Virgin Media O2, Vodafone, Three, Sky, and TalkTalk) have united under updated industry charters to coordinate responses against common scams.

Intelligence Sharing: Telecom companies participate in specialized working groups and operations boards to pass high-quality data packages directly to police and the Fraud Targeting Cell.

Intelligence Sharing Hubs: Operators cooperate through organizations like the GSMA Fraud and Security Group and regional risk centers (such as COMRIC) are sharing threat data on criminal syndicates.

Partnerships between Banking and Law Enforcement: Telcos coordinate directly with financial institutions and police agencies (via specialized units and charter agreements) to trace fraudulent funds, track SIM farms, and target the organizers of scams.

Targeting Infrastructure: Industry groups are actively investigating and disrupting illicit setups like SIM farms and SMS blasters used for mass messaging scams.

Technical Defenses and Security Measures

Sender Verification: Networks are tightening vetting procedures for commercial messaging and strengthening sender ID rules to protect business and public SMS channels.

Traceback Initiatives: Operators are developing national and cross-network traceback frameworks to pinpoint the origin of illegal and spoofed calls

Blocking Malicious Sites: Partnerships with cybersecurity authorities block massive volumes of phishing pages, malware delivery domains, and fake online shops.

Open Gateway

The Open Gateway (SVI-OGW) enables the rapid delivery of converged services across 5G SA, 5G NSA, VoLTE, IMS, NGN and Legacy SS7 networks.The SVI-OGW enables operators to leverage existing infrastructure, increase return on investment and rapidly deploy new services.

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