14 DAY TRIAL // A 26-year-old Venezuelan man was extradited to U.S. last week in order to stand trial for instrumenting a complex scheme that used hacked networks to freely route VoIP traffic. The alleged hacker fled the country back in August 2006, after being indicted in New Jersey.
Edwin Pena used to be a resident of Miami and operated two companies that offered various VoIP telecom services, including VoIP auditing and security consultancy. According to the authorities, in 2005, the Venezuelan national paired up with a computer programmer and hacker from Spokane, Washington, named Robert Moore, in order to defraud other VoIP telecom providers.
Moore's role in the scheme was to hack into the computer networks of companies and VoIP providers and then send the login credentials to Pena. The latter would then set up these networks to accept incoming VoIP calls and use various means of hiding the rogue traffic.
He then offered other companies VoIP services at significantly reduced rates. He was able to make a profit by routing this traffic freely through series of compromised networks, without being charged anything for it. According to the indictment (PDF), Pena routed more than 500,000 telephone calls, totaling over 10 million minutes in this way. The losses caused to legit VoIP telecom providers is estimated to be $1.4 million.
Pena was indicted on June 2006 and his bail was set at $100,000. After posting bond and appearing one time in court, the hacker fled the country in August of the same year. In February 2009, authorities caught up with him in Mexico, from where he was extradited to U.S. last week. His arraignment has been scheduled for October 23.
"This extradition represents the continued success of the United States in working with foreign countries to bring alleged cyber criminals to justice. No one should feel free and comfortable from prosecution or detection merely be being in another country," commented New Jersey, U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman.
Robert Moore already pleaded guilty to hacking offenses in 2007 and was sentenced to two years in a federal prison. Moore only walked off with $20,000 from the scheme, but Pena, whom the authorities consider to be the mastermind of the operation, got enough money to buy himself a luxury car and a boat.