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Hacking. Disinformation. Surveillance. CYBER is Motherboard's podcast and reporting on the dark underbelly of the internet.
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The complaint, written by an FBI Special Agent who is part of the Los Angeles Cyber Fraud Task Force, says that the FBI identified Golshan’s high-rise apartment in January 2023, after investigating his suspected involvement in a series of SIM swapping cases. The FBI tracked the activity to Golshan based on his connection to an IP address that was used to access a victim’s accounts, and a victim’s identification of Golshan as the party responsible with whom she had a video call, among other evidence, the complaint reads.The complaint describes several cases where Golshan allegedly took over female influencers’ phone numbers, and then broke into their Instagram accounts. He sometimes allegedly sent messages to the victim’s friends to solicit money. In one case, a victim declined to provide Golshan with $1,000 to get her account back. Golshan then said he would return the account if the victim started a video call and stripped for him instead, according to the complaint. In that instance, the victim compiled while Golshan masturbated, the complaint adds.Are you a SIM swapper? Are you a victim of these sorts of attacks? We'd love to hear from you. Using a non-work phone or computer, you can contact Joseph Cox securely on Signal on +44 20 8133 5190, Wickr on josephcox, or email joseph.cox@vice.com.
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