T-Mobile store owner gained unauthorized access to the network’s employees to unlock phones

An owner of a T-Mobile retail store in California allegedly provided a $25 million scheme where he could illegally access T-Mobile’s internal system to unlock and unblock phones. The 44-year-old owner named Argishti Khudaverdyan ran a scheme between 2014 and 2019 where he unlocked devices of vendors from the T-Mobile network and enabled them to use with other telecommunication providers.

This illegal scheme impacted the mobile carriers and blocked them from accessing their networks for some time. The accused also unlocked devices that were previously reported by their owner as stolen or lost creating a way for personal information to be sold on the black market. The U.S. Department of Justice confirmed the activity by saying, “From August 2014 to June 2019, Khudaverdyan fraudulently unlocked and unblocked cellphones on T-Mobile’s network, as well as the networks of Sprint, AT&T and other carriers. They further said that unblocking the phones that were reported lost or stolen can be detrimental to the previous owner as they can be sold on the black market also the incident has impacted T-Mobile’s revenue generation process as T-Mobile customers stopped using the network due to safety concerns.

The Department of Justice also added that Argishti Khudaverdyan will be sentenced to maximum imprisonment for each fraudulent activity.

The accused Argishti Khudaverdyan was observed to be using unlocks247.com, spam emails, and other brokers for promoting his unlocking services to find out potential clients. He was also engaged in false advertising and presented his unlocking activities as T-Mobile’s official service to come across as a verified campaign. Reportedly he compromised more than 50 T-Mobile employee credentials via phishing emails mimicking actual T-Mobile internal correspondence. He has also been working with overseas call centers to target higher-level T-Mobile employees. He called T-Mobile IT Help Desk to reset the employee password that he was impersonating to access the internal T-Mobile systems to perform unlocking services.

The accused was also observed to have an accomplice named Alen Gharehbagloo, another owner of a T-Mobile store in L.A. who also pleaded guilty to three felonies.