Posted on 07/22/2006 5:19:33 AM PDT by radar101
Thieves have gone high-tech in Southern California, repeatedly striking cell phone base stations in the middle of the night and stealing millions of dollars' worth of electronics equipment.
The thefts have disrupted cell phone service and left experts pondering the scope of a criminal operation that likely has international ties.
Last week, thieves hit San Diego County for the second time, stealing $250,000 in electronics from a Verizon cell site in San Marcos in one minute flat before getting away, sheriff's officials said.
The first attempt in La Jolla a week earlier was unsuccessful.
They follow a string of thefts that began in Northern California last fall and then died down before picking up in Los Angeles, Riverside and San Bernardino counties.
“It seems like this is a trend throughout Southern California and it is very lucrative,” said Riverside County Sheriff's Sgt. Earl Quinata.
Some of the technology being stolen, called channel or line cards, is valued at $25,000 to $30,000 apiece and is an integral part of cell phone transmissions. They look like flat circuit boards and are about the size of a laptop computer.
Thieves are also swiping pricey radio transmitters and receivers from the base stations – large utility boxes often located next to cell phone towers.
“It's not only quite expensive, but the core backbone of how cell networks operate,” said Michael King, a local wireless analyst with Gartner Group, a technology research firm.
The burgeoning thefts are starting to alarm some cell phone companies and raise concerns about how to better secure hundreds of cell sites in the region.
“It's an industrywide issue we are addressing,” said Art Navarro, a spokesman for Cingular.
FBI high-tech task forces in California, incorporating several law enforcement agencies, have been brought in to help investigate.
Officials say they may be dealing with multiple groups of criminals who act on their own but are loosely affiliated.
One night last December, thieves struck four cell phone sites in four different cities in three counties.
“They are definitely organized, the way they hit,” said San Bernardino sheriff's Sgt. Tony DeCicio.
What makes the thefts even more intriguing is the question of who might be buying this stolen technology.
According to experts, only cell phone companies would have a use for the highly specialized channel cards.
“They can't be used in the U.S. because we'd be able to trace them,” said San Diego County Sheriff's detective Sgt. Tom Bulow.
Some of the stolen equipment, however, has been traced to U.S. dealers on the East Coast who bought it on the semi-legitimate “gray” market, said Tony Porta, a California Highway Patrol investigator on the FBI task force.
“Since they are dealing with such a large quantity of money, these dealers don't really do the homework they need to do due diligence to make sure it is legitimately in the market,” said Porta, who is working the cases in Northern California.
Experts and investigators say, more likely, the stolen technology is being sold on the international black market to other large cell phone service providers in Third World countries.
“Places like Asia or anywhere there is new developing technology is a possibility,” Porta said.
King, the local wireless analyst, said the sophistication of the crime would take a large fencing operation capable of exporting the stolen goods and supplying official paperwork to legitimate cell providers in other countries.
“We're talking about corporations buying this stuff, not someone selling it on the corner,” King said.
Verizon officials in Southern California say they have reported five to 10 thefts over the past year.
Cingular has had more than a dozen, and Sprint at least one.
Company officials would not disclose how much money the thefts have cost them, although investigators put the average loss at about $300,000 per hit.
“It's adding up,” said Navarro of Cingular. “We are very anxious to find the individuals committing these crimes.”
When transmitting equipment disappears from a base station, nearby cell phone users experience a temporary disruption in service. The stations are usually running again within a few hours.
“We're doing what we can to obviously safeguard the network and cell sites,” said Ken Mushe, a Verizon spokesman.
Companies have added security guards to monitor the sites, but it becomes more difficult when base stations are in remote areas.
Some of them are well hidden, while in other cases they are conspicuously located at cell towers behind a locked chain-link fence.
Sheriff's detective Matt Blumenthal, who is investigating the San Marcos theft, said the cell sites are easy targets.
“It's only going to get worse,” he said.
No similar incidents could be found in other parts of the country.
“We're talking millions of dollars of loss to the victims,” Porta said. “There is a heavy emphasis on catching these guys right now.”
Kristina Davis: (760) 476-8233; kristina.davis@uniontrib.com
Coming to YOUR town, soon.
Actually, there is nothing new about this. This sort of theft of cellular transmission equipment has been going on since at least the late 1980's. It's just rarely reported because the carriers don't want to alert would be thieves to the value of the stuff that is being stolen. That only entices more theft. We've also had coax stolen off towers for the copper and batteries for the lead. We even a pile of gravel stolen off a site in Kentucky.
There is a huge overseas market for resale of this equipment, both in Asia and South America. Doesn't surprise me in the least that this stuff was stolen. What does surprise me is that the carrier allowed the information to be made public. Now, everybody knows it's value and potential markets for it......
This might be a dumb question, but I gonna ask it anyway. = ^)
Everyone knows they shut down cell service in a high threat situation or an attack. Could this equipemnt be used to overcome that?
Becki
Depends on the equipment. Most of the cellular repeaters I've installed, probably in the hundreds now after 20 years in the field, are the size of a small refrigerator and weigh around 300-400 lbs. Not exactly what you would call "portable" unless you had it mounted in a truck. A cellular repeater is also just that, a repeater. It can't function like a stand alone cell site in that you can't make calls on it unless it is tied to the public telephone network or if it is slaved off of a functioning cell site. A repeater's main purpose is to repeat channels to give additional coverage. They are usually used in remote, fringe areas to extend coverage and to fill "holes" in coverage caused by terrain or where two carriers systems meet.
I suppose the quick answer would be that yes, anything that transmits a known signal could be used to trigger an explosive device. A hand held HAM radio would be far more portable (and easier to conceal) than a cellular repeater and could also be used as a trigger. I think this stuff is likely being stolen to be sold on the second hand market, as opposed to being used by terrorists. Lots of small carriers, both domestic and foreign, buy used equipment because they think it saves them money. Not all second hand equipment is stolen, but sometimes it is. The reality is sooner or later this stuff is going to have to be sent in for repair and since every component has a discrete serial number it would likely be identified as stolen at that time and seized. As an example, one small, rural carrier I worked for up in Kentucky several years ago bought a bunch of second hand power amplifiers and DC converters that turned out to be stolen when they were sent in for repair. They lost a pile of money on that deal........
Nothing here that the landline telco's haven't been dealing with for the past 50 or so years.
I think criminals communicate with each other. They pass on inforamtion about their activities without the aid of the news media. If one area of crookism becomes lucrative very one gets on board.
In fact they might even communicate via cell phones. Now that's ironic!
Becki
Probably in the thousands. You can search the FCC website for an exact count, though. I know I've commissioned about 80 cell sites in California, primarily in Chico, Ukiah, Redding, El Centro, and the LA area.
Can the companies put small transmitters on this equipment to track it once it is stolen?
I haven't seen that yet, but with the new RFID technology I would imagine that RF tracking will eventually make it to this sort of equipment, given its value. As of now, I've only seen equipment bar coded for tracking purposes such as inventory control, tracking time in service, repairs made do discrete components, etc. Once something is reported stolen the various repair facilities are notified to be on the lookout for the stolen equipment via its serial number. Of course, this doesn't help if it's sold to a carrier in Peru.
Maybe they should start looking for these hidden under the seats & in the trunks of the stolen luxury cars & SUVs smuggled to the Middle East.
Just a quick question, since North America uses one band and the rest of the world 3 different bands, wouldn't the equipment be incompatible or does that only apply to the actual transmitter/recievers?
Depends on the country. Most of the world uses GSM, or "Global System for Mobile Communications". Most of the USA uses TDMA or CDMA technology, but some carriers are switching to GSM, Cingular for incidence. GSM is superior technology to the other two. So, if the thieves are hitting GSM sites, and they know what they are looking for, there is a large market overseas and even here in some incidences. If they steal TDMA or CDMA equipment, there isn't much of a market overseas.
All cell sites use power DC power, though. Essentially, most transmission equipment is powered by either 24V DC or -48V DC. The line power feeding the site is 120V AC, so it has to be converted to DC and regulated to power the transmission equipment. Often thieves will steal the DC converters because they are pretty universal and their use is not limited to cellular transmission. A typical 24V DC power supply used in a typical cell site would also make a good golf cart or fork lift battery charger, since that is essentially what they are. I've also seen generators stolen off sites, photovoltaic arrays, and even an LP tank once.
Thanks, that's what I was wondering. I have two phones, my Verizon one and my GSM tri-band that I use when I travel. I couldn't imagine what value the US stuff would have in Asia for example.
Which brings me the gripe I have. I can travel any where in the world, buy a Sim chip in the airport and pay 5-25 cents a minute in country. I probably use less than 30 minutes a month. To have a phone in the US, I gotta pay $35/month with 300 minutes free(10x more than I need). IOW, we're getting ripped off, it explains how folks who make $50 bucks a week in China can have a phone.
That's why I cancelled Cingular the day I retired. Now, if I want cell service, I can buy Trac Fone at Wal-Mart for much less.
I've been using Cingular Go Phone service for about a year. Buy your phone and choose between pay as you go bundles - ten cents or 25 cents a minute. There's various reasons to choose one or the other. With my usage pattern I do 25 cents a minute in $25 increments. No contracts, stop at any time.
They expire in three months ($100 bundles last a year), unused minutes roll over if you buy more before then. Since I went to this from a regular contract, my cell phone bill runs about $9 a month versus the previous $59.
It's very good for those, like me, who have to have a cell phone for work, travel or emergencies, but use it very little.
http://onlinestorez.cingular.com/cell-phone-service/gophone/
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