Secret Service Dismantles ‘Imminent Threat’ in New York Ahead of UN General Assembly

The Secret Service has dismantled a telecommunications network in New York that posed a threat to top government officials. 

After multiple telecommunications threats were directed toward senior government officials in the spring, the Secret Service launched an investigation to “determine the source of these fraudulent calls,” Matt McCool, special agent in charge of the Secret Service New York Field Office, said in a video announcement Tuesday morning.  

Working with local, state, and federal partners, the “investigation led us to the New York tristate area where investigators discovered tens of thousands of co-located network cellular devices capable of carrying out nefarious telecommunications attacks,” McCool said. 

The discovered cellular devices “allowed anonymous encrypted communications between potential threat actors and criminal enterprises, enabling criminal organizations to operate undetected,” he explained.  

The network of devices “had the potential to disable cellphone towers and essentially shut down the cellular network in New York City,” McCool said.  

Most of the devices were found within 35 miles of the United Nations General Assembly, which is holding a meeting Tuesday morning in which President Donald Trump will speak. Given the large international gathering Tuesday, the Secret Service says it acted quickly to dismantle the threat. The recovered devices no longer pose a security risk, according to the Secret Service.  

The U.S. Secret Service’s Advanced Threat Interdiction Unit is carrying out an ongoing investigation and is working to find all responsible and determine if there was a plan to disrupt the U.N. General Assembly.

The special Secret Service unit is “dedicated to disrupting the most significant and imminent threats” to those the Secret Service protects, according to the agency.  

Initially analysis of the cellular devices and data “indicates cellular communications between foreign actors and individuals that are known to federal law enforcement,” McCool said. “Given the sensitivity and complexity of this investigation, we are not able to go into specifics at this time.”  

McCool did not announce any arrests.