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-Land of the Free
Shock: New York Cell Service Disruption Plot Now Much Larger Than We Thought-Are there other cells nationwide?
2025-10-07
Follow up to this story from a two weeks ago.
[RedState] On Friday, we reported on what appeared to be a coordinated attempt to disrupt cellular phone services in New York City, including service near the United Nations building. This attempt involved many thousands of "Subscriber Identity Modules", or SIM cards, set up in several hundred SIM servers.

This is a serious matter; it's not just interfering with Sam's ability to text his buddy Joe to meet up for beers. This has the potential to disrupt emergency services, law enforcement, business, navigation, and much more. What's more, a nation-state actor is implicated, and indications are that it's China.

Now, things are much worse than initial findings indicate.



Note that ABC News is now reporting that this is a "China-linked plot that could have crippled every cell tower in the nation's largest city, jammed 911 calls, and unleashed chaos on communications networks." This could have disrupted communications over much of the New York metropolitan area. Maybe farther.

Secret Service personnel, along with officers from multiple agencies, seized hundreds of servers and over 100,000 cellphone SIM cards from around New York. Enough equipment to send 30 million anonymous texts every minute, which would collapse the telecommunications system.

They found empty apartments with servers and server walls capable of making millions of phone calls in and around New York City," said Donald Mihalek, an ABC News Contributor who was formerly with the Secret Service.

But this week, that number expanded. Law enforcement sources told ABC News that agents from Homeland Security Investigations found an additional 200,000 SIM cards in New Jersey.

These devices allowed anonymous encrypted communications between potential threat and criminal enterprises," said McCool.

The U.S. Secret Service is still working to figure out a motive and whether or not there was a specific target. It's also still not clear if the equipment was supposed to be triggered during the United Nations General Assembly, which took place in New York during the last full week of September.

So far, no arrests have been made but McCool did mention that forensic examination is underway. He also indicated there was cellular communication between foreign actors and individuals known to law enforcement.

If China is indeed implicated, the motive would appear to be clear enough: The disruption of communications and the flow of information, from private people, businesses, and government, over most of the area of our nation's largest city.

Which begs the question: are there more of these SIM farms in other cities?
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Related:
SIM cards 10/03/2025 Error 404: 48 hours of confusion in Afghanistan during internet blackout
SIM cards 09/23/2025 Secret Service dismantles 'telecommunications threat' near UN General Assembly in New York
SIM cards 08/12/2025 Terror group leader pleads guilty to recruiting hit men in plots to murder federal officials

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