Two arrested in phone fraud case

A professional computer hacker in Spokane and a Miami businessman penetrated the networks of Internet phone providers to connect hundreds of thousands of free calls, federal prosecutors alleged Wednesday.

After hacker Robert Moore obtained free access to the networks, Edwin Andres Pena charged customers more than $1 million to route calls for them, according to FBI complaints made public with Pena’s arrest in Florida. Moore was paid $20,000 by Pena for his part in the scheme, according to court papers.

Moore, 22, surrendered to federal agents in Spokane and was released without bond after making an initial appearance in U.S. District Court for Eastern Washington. His next court appearance was set for June 14 in the U.S. District Court in New Jersey, where the criminal charges were filed.

A message left at his address was not immediately returned and he didn’t return an e-mail message seeking comment.

Pena, 23, who had a court appearance Wednesday in Miami, could not be reached for comment.

The criminal complaint against Moore lists a number of aliases, among them moorer2k. A page on the social networking site MySpace under that name belongs to Robert Moore of Spokane, whose listed interests include “computers, hacking” and the book “Hacking Exposed.” The site also says Moore graduated from North Central High School in 2002.

At least 15 Internet phone companies were victimized in the scheme, with one suffering as much as $300,000 in lost fees, prosecutors said.

Pena allegedly was able to secretly route 500,000 calls through a Newark-based provider identified in the complaint as “N.T.P.,” which appears to be Net2Phone. Messages seeking comment from the company, and its corporate parent, IDT Corp., were not immediately returned Wednesday.

Authorities said that to hide profits from his scheme, which ran from November 2004 to May 2006, Pena bought real estate, three luxury vehicles and a 40-foot motorboat.

Pena operated two telecommunications companies, Fortes Telecom Inc. and Miami Tech & Consulting Inc., according to federal prosecutors. The companies, acting as wholesalers, sold more than 10 million minutes of Internet telephone service for as little as 0.4 cents a minute.

Instead of sending calls over legitimate routes that Pena would have to pay for, Pena “created what amounted to ‘free’ routes by surreptitiously hacking into the computer networks of unwitting” Internet phone providers, the FBI complaint stated.

That was accomplished by Moore, who located vulnerable computer ports at unsuspecting non-phone companies around the world, the complaint said. Pena then programmed those networks to accept Internet phone traffic, prosecutors said.

Pena was charged with wire fraud, which carries up to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine, and computer hacking, which carries up to five years and a $250,000 fine. Moore faces a conspiracy charge, which could bring five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.