Vic man arrested after alleged bulk mobile porting incident

A 34-year-old man from Lynbrook in Melbourne’s south-east is facing up to 10 years in prison after trying to “bulk port” 86 mobile numbers to another telco.

The incident occurred in July last year, and was detected by the telco, which was not named.

The telco recorded 193 alleged port-in attempts relating to 86 mobile numbers registered with other providers.

Of those, the Australian Federal Police alleges that 44 were successfully ported over “without the rightful owners’ consent.”

“The AFP is working to identify victims and procure statements from those allegedly affected,” it said in a statement.

Once a scammer is in control of a mobile number, they can use it to bypass multi-factor authentication settings to bank accounts and other sensitive information.

Police said they seized items from the home of the man, “including several mobile phones, a desktop computer, SIM cards and suspected drug items, which will be subject to further forensic analysis.”