T-Mobile Store Owner Made $25M Using Stolen Employee Credentials

A Burbank, Calif., man was convicted on several counts related to a mobile phone scheme that made more than $25 million, according to the Department of Justice.

Law enforcement said Argishti Khudaverdyan owned a phone retailer and over the course of several years used stolen employee credentials of more than 50 different T-Mobile employees to “unlock” hundreds of thousands of phones on the networks of AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile.

“Removing the unlock allowed the phones to be sold on the black market and enabled T-Mobile customers to stop using T-Mobile’s services and thereby deprive T-Mobile of revenue generated from customers’ service contracts and equipment installment plans,” a statement on the insider attack conviction from the Department of Justice said.

The DoJ added Khudaverdyan used the more than $25 million he made from the illicit scheme to buy real estate, among other things.

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