Fugitive VoIP hacker admits 10 million minute spree

A Miami hacker has admitted he pocketed more than $1m by selling millions of minutes of voice over IP calls and surreptitiously routing them through the networks of telecommunications companies.

Edwin Andrew Pena pleaded guilty to two felonies in connection with the hacking spree, which spanned the years 2004 through 2006, according to court documents. He was apprehended last year in Mexico after skipping out on a $100,000 bond secured by the mother of his then girlfriend.

Pena appeared in US District Court in New Jersey on Wednesday and pleaded guilty to wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud and unauthorized access to a protected computer. He faces a maximum of 25 years in federal prison and fines of at least $500,000 at sentencing, which is scheduled for May 14.

Pena and cohort Robert Moore were arrested in June 2006 and accused of carrying out an elaborate scheme that routed more than 10 million minutes of VoIP calls over the networks of a dozen or so telecommunications providers without their permission. They breached the networks by using brute-force attacks that deduced the security telephone prefixes needed to gain access.

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