Verizon and ATT use FBI as Corporate Police Force
August 19th, 2009 by Gordon Cook
FBI Defends Disruptive Raids on Texas Data Centers
On April 7th wired wrote “The FBI on Tuesday defended its raids on at least two data centers in Texas, in which agents carted out equipment and disrupted service to hundreds of businesses.
The raids were part of an investigation prompted by complaints from AT&T and Verizon about unpaid bills allegedly owed by some data center customers, according to court records. One data center owner charges that the telecoms are using the FBI to collect debts that should be resolved in civil court. But on Tuesday, an FBI spokesman disputed that charge.
“We wouldn’t be looking at it if it was a civil matter,” says Mark White, spokesman for the FBI’s Dallas office. “And a judge wouldn’t sign a federal search warrant if there wasn’t probable cause to believe that a fraud took place and that the equipment we asked to seize had evidence pertaining to the criminal violation.”
In interviews with Threat Level, companies affected by the raids say they’ve lost millions of dollars in equipment and business after the FBI hauled off gear belonging to phone and VoIP providers, a credit card processing company and other businesses that housed equipment at the centers. Nobody has been charged in the FBI’s investigation.
According to the owner of one co-location facility, Crydon Technology, which was raided on March 12, FBI agents seized about 220 servers belonging to him and his customers, as well as routers, switches, cabinets for storing servers and even power strips. Authorities also raided his home, where they seized eight iPods, some belonging to his three children, five XBoxes, a PlayStation3 system and a Wii gaming console, among other equipment. Agents also seized about $200,000 from the owner’s business accounts, $1,000 from his teenage daughter’s account and more than $10,000 in a personal bank account belonging to the elderly mother of his former comptroller.
Mike Faulkner, owner of Crydon, says the seizure has resulted in him losing millions of dollars in revenue. It’s also put many of his customers out of business or at risk of closure.”
COOK Edge: The big boys want to shut down Voip competition. So they call the FBI.
Almost 6 months later no arrests made no indictments brought. But the Gmen take all of this very seriously.
Here is the defense side which Wired failed to publish. Details of the Raid. a good intro to the mess. ATT