Massive N.Y. telecom threat is foiled

While close to 150 world leaders prepared to descend on Manhattan for the U.N. General Assembly, the U.S. Secret Service was quietly dismantling a massive hidden telecom network across the New York area — a system investigators say could have crippled cell towers, jammed 911 calls and flooded networks with chaos at the very moment the city was most vulnerable.

- By MIKE BALSAMO

RICHARD DREW Associated Press

SECRET SERVICE agent Matt McCool, center, eyes live video feeds in the agency's New York field office.

The cache, made up of more than 300 SIM servers packed with over 100,000 SIM cards and clustered within 35 miles of the United Nations, represents one of the most sweeping communications threats uncovered on U.S. soil. Investigators warn the system could have blacked out cellular service in a city that relies on it not only for daily life but for emergency response and counterterrorism.

Coming as foreign leaders filled Midtown hotels and motorcades clogged Manhattan, officials say the takedown highlights a new frontier of risk: plots aimed at the invisible infrastructure that keeps a modern city connected.

The network was uncovered as part of a broader Secret Service investigation into telecommunications threats targeting senior government officials, according to investigators.