FBI Press release: Mustafa Family Crime Ring - Worldwide Smartphone Theft Ring Busted in Minneapolis - 20 members busted with runners hitting stores nationwide
 

United States Attorney Andrew M. Luger yesterday announced the indictment of 20 members of the Mustafa Family (The Organization), a Twin Cities-based criminal organization, for trafficking stolen and fraudulently obtained mobile telephones and tablets. From at least 2006 through 2014, JAMAL MUSTAFA directed the Organization to use stolen identity information to obtain cellular telephones and other mobile devices for the purpose of trafficking them throughout the United States and internationally. The Family owned and operated 13 mobile device stores in the Twin Cities metropolitan area. The Organization used these storefronts to buy devices that they knew had been illegally obtained, including purchasing thousands of cellular phones from runners and other persons who got the phones through robberies, burglaries, shoplifting, and fraud and identity-theft schemes. With the assistance of AHMED SUNOQROT, the Organization moved inventory and money between their stores, which the Organization used as fronts to funnel the illicit proceeds of their criminal activity. According to the indictment, the Organization paid runners who stole mobile devices or obtained them fraudulently by other means.

As charged, various members of the Mustafa Family provided stolen or fraudulent identity information to the runners, including names, dates of birth, social security numbers, credit card numbers, passport information, and driver’s license numbers of victims. Some of the runners operated solely within Minnesota, while others travelled to Arizona, Idaho, North Dakota, Iowa, Wisconsin, Illinois, and Utah to obtain devices. The Organization arranged out-of-state travel for the runners and paid their expenses. One runner was arrested in Utah in 2013 with more than 80 counterfeit identification documents and genuine victim-information documents. This runner used those documents to open lines of credit at various retail outlets to make fraudulent device purchases.

The runners were instructed by the Mustafas to obtain phones by contract-fraud and subscription-fraud schemes. In such schemes, runners used real stolen identities to obtain cell phone contracts. At times, the runners obtained “family plans” or “business accounts.” In so doing, runners were sold phones at deeply discounted prices by the legitimate retailers. The full retail price of an iPhone 5s in the United States is approximately $648. Under a two-year contract, the same phone is sold for approximately $200. Runners then opened accounts entitling them to obtain as few as one discounted phone, and as many as 30. The runners then shipped or delivered the phones back to the Mustafas, via one of the thirteen Twin Cities storefronts, or shipped the phones to wholesalers in other states for sale overseas. A new iPhone 5s retails for between $1,000 and $1,200 overseas.

Other runners engaged in street-level violence or burglary to obtain phones. The Sunrise Group, a burglary ring that traveled throughout the Upper Midwest for the purpose of breaking into WalMart stores to steal cell phones, iPads, and other electronic devices, provided electronic devices to the Mustafa Family on several occasions. The Mustafa Family made requests of the Sunrise Group for large quantities of new phones, and would act as a fence for the stolen merchandise. (Source fbi.gov)