Federal investigators have arrested Ivey J. Lay, of Charlotte, North Carolina. Lay is accused of stealing more than 100,000 telephone calling card numbers using a high tech approach. This is one of the biggest fraud cases ever to hit the telecommunications industry. Agents say the ring operated out of five U.S. cities and in Spain and Germany. Lay was a switch engineer for MCI and allegedly acted as the main supplier of stolen numbers.
Authorities say ring members used a high tech method to steal calling card numbers.
Instead of computer hacking or watching customers enter their numbers. Lay allegedly designed computer software to divert and hold calling card numbers from carriers running through MCI's telephone switching equipment. Those numbers were then sold to computer hackers in the U.S. and in Europe. The numbers' new owners then sold them to Europeans who would later use them to call numbers in the U.S. for free. On October 6th, Secret Service agents seized computer disks containing thousands of calling card numbers.