US Secret Service dismantles telecom threat around UN capable of crippling NYC cell service

While close to 150 world leaders prepared to descend on Manhattan for the UN General Assembly, the US 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.

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 US 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. Spread across multiple sites, the servers functioned like banks of mock cellphones, able to generate mass calls and texts, overwhelm local networks and mask encrypted communications criminals, officials say.

“It can’t be understated what this system is capable of doing,” says Matt McCool, the special agent in charge of the Secret Service’s New York field office. “It can take down cell towers, so then no longer can people communicate, right? …. You can’t text message, you can’t use your cell phone. And if you coupled that with some sort of other event associated with UNGA, you know, use your imagination there, it could be catastrophic to the city.”

Officials say they haven’t uncovered a direct plot to disrupt the UN General Assembly and note there are no known credible threats to New York City.