Oregon Man Sentenced to 16 Months in Federal Prison for Abusing His Role at Mobile Phone Store to Give Customers’ Info to Criminals
LOS ANGELES / Tuesday, September 8, 2026 – A former Oregon-based AT&T Store employee was sentenced today to 16 months in federal prison for selling his access to his employer’s network to a hacker by “SIM swapping” customers – fraudulently reassigning customers’ cell phone numbers – so the hacker could take control of the victims’ bank accounts and steal their money, causing nearly $600,000 in intended losses.
Kenneth Carter, 44, of Portland, Oregon, was sentenced by United States District Judge Stanley Blumenfeld, Jr., who also ordered him to pay $99,528 in restitution.
Carter pleaded guilty on March 24 to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and bank fraud.
“SIM swapping” is a technique in which a criminal fraudulently induces a mobile carrier to reassign a cell phone number from the legitimate subscriber’s Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) card to a SIM card controlled by another without the legitimate subscriber’s authorization or knowledge. This process allows a criminal to intercept two-factor authentication codes sent to the victim via phone call or text message, and to gain access to the victim’s various accounts.
According to Carter’s plea agreement, from May 2018 to November 2019, Carter worked at an AT&T retail store in Portland, Oregon. As part of the conspiracy, a co-conspirator identified potential victims who had bank accounts that could be accessed online and would obtain personal identifying information (PII) and cell phone numbers for those potential victims. This co-conspirator then sent to Carter victims’ PII and cell phone numbers so Carter could do the SIM swap, which he could do as an AT&T Store employee.
Carter, at the co-conspirator’s direction, then used the victim’s PII to fraudulently cause AT&T to swap the victim’s SIM card from the victim’s cell phone to a different cell phone controlled by Carter and other co-conspirators.
A co-conspirator then caused password reset information and two-factor authentication codes for a victim’s online bank account to be sent by text message to a phone Carter and his co-conspirators controlled. He and others then forwarded the information and codes to a co-conspirator, who then accessed the victim’s online bank account and made fraudulent wire transfers from it. Carter and the other conspirators received a cut of the illicitly obtained proceeds, typically $1,000 to $2,000 per SIM swap, one of which occurred at an AT&T Store in Lancaster.
In November 2019, law enforcement searched Carter’s residence in Oregon and found that he possessed PII belonging to victims, including the cell phone number, name, and Social Security number of a victim who had $99,528 fraudulently transferred to a Portuguese bank account controlled by Carter’s co-conspirators.
In total, three victims targeted in this scheme suffered a combined intended loss of at least $593,963. Carter further admitted that in addition to these three victims, he performed SIM swaps on the accounts of other AT&T customers.
AT&T terminated Carter in 2019.
“[Carter] abused the trust of his employer and sold his access to AT&T’s network to a hacker by SIM swapping AT&T customers so the hacker could take control of victims’ accounts and deplete their funds,” prosecutors argued in a sentencing memorandum. “One victim lost nearly $100,000, and other victims may have lost more had it not been for fraud prevention at various banks, which stopped the transfers the funds before they were wired overseas.”
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Office of Inspector General, the FBI, and IRS Criminal Investigation investigated this matter.
Assistant United States Attorneys Andrew M. Roach and Nisha Chandran of the Major Frauds Section prosecuted this case.
Contact
Ciaran McEvoy
Public Information Officer
ciaran.mcevoy@usdoj.gov
(213) 894-4465
Source: U.S. Attorney's Office, Central District of California
