An indictment unsealed today charges three Indiana residents, Indigo Kiara Graham, Cortez Tarmar Crawford, and Trevon Demar Allen, with conspiracy related to a SIM-swapping operation, the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Northern District of California announced today.
The department reports that all three defendants were arrested yesterday and made their initial appearances in federal court in South Bend, Indiana.
According to the indictment filed on Nov. 7, 2024, Graham, 27, Crawford, 22, and Allen, 30, all of Elkhart, Indiana, allegedly conspired with others to profit illegally by targeting victims for SIM (subscriber identity module) swaps.
A SIM card is an integrated circuit that stores authentication and other information for devices on mobile networks.
In a SIM swap, a criminal causes the SIM card assigned to a victim’s mobile account to be transferred to a SIM card controlled by the perpetrator, the department explained.
Once in control of the SIM card, the criminal can impersonate the victim to other service providers, such as email platforms, cryptocurrency exchanges, and social media, by using the victim’s cell phone number to receive password reset codes, according to the department.