Muhammad Sohail Qasmani, a 47-year-old Pakistani citizen, was previously arrested for laundering over 19 million dollars. Qasmani was a part of a worldwide PC hacking and telecommunications fraud scheme.
Although Qasmani was arrested and charged, the alleged leader behind the massive fraud network, 53-year-old Pakistani citizen Noor Aziz, is still at large.
Aziz was able to organize the operation by gaining unlawful access to PBX systems belonging to a variety of different US companies. Manipulating internal telephone networks, the group was then able to start the profitable scam.
“Foreign-based hackers targeted the telephone systems of the victim corporations and placed calls to those systems in an attempt to identify unused telephone extensions. Once the hackers identified unused extensions, they illegally reprogrammed the telephone systems so that they could be used to make unlimited long distance calls, all of which were ultimately charged back to the victim corporations.”
Qasmani’s involvement began in 2008, when his Thailand money laundering and smuggling business got him noticed by Aziz. After propositioning him, Aziz proceeded to use Qasmani to launch numerous bank accounts to collect money produced by the telecommunication scam.
The profit must’ve been worth it, as Qasmani went as far as paying the hackers/dialers working for Aziz to keep the scam active. The specifics that went into the scam are almost impressive in their attention to detail.
“The hacked telephone systems were then used to make calls to premium telephone numbers – such as purported chat lines, adult entertainment, and psychic hotlines – that generated revenue based on the calls’ duration and were set up and controlled by Aziz.
In actuality, the numbers provided no actual services. Telephone company representatives who suspected fraudulent activity and called the numbers heard recordings of fake rings, fake password prompts, fake voicemail messages, music, or dead air on continuous loops.”
Qasmani was sentenced to four years in prison, two years of supervised release, and $71.8 million in amends.