Muhammad Fahd, 35, a citizen of Pakistan and Grenada, has been sentenced to 12 years in prison for leading a nearly decade-long phone unlocking scheme. The scheme resulted in estimated losses of over $200 million for the telecommunications company, AT&T.

Authorities indicted Fahd in 2017 after an investigation by the Justice Department revealed that he was running an unlocking scheme from his native country, Pakistan. In 2018, he was arrested in Hong Kong and then extradited to Seattle, Washington, the following year.

Many customers who came to AT&T would opt for expensive phones including the latest iPhone models. AT&T was able to secure such high-cost phones at a subsidized price and then sell the phones to customers through installment plans. According to prosecutors, Fahd helped orchestrate a for-profit scheme that unlocked customer phones. Once their phones were unlocked, the customers were then able to transfer the phone plan to a cheaper service or avoid making payments on the purchase of their phone entirely.

Authorities allege that the scheme began in 2012 when Fahd was able to infiltrate an AT&T call center in Bothell, Washington. Fahd was able to infiltrate the call center after posing as a man named Frank Zhang and convincing an AT&T employee through Facebook to help him with the phone unlocking scheme. Using large sums of money, Fahd was able to bribe and encourage the employee to recruit other AT&T employees to help with the scheme. Between 2012 and 2017, Fahd paid 3 AT&T workers a total of $922,000.

In 2013, Fahd’s phone unlocking scheme evolved after AT&T implemented a new system for unlocking phones. The system made it harder for AT&T employees to issue unauthorized unlocking. In response to AT&T‘s latest defense, Fahd hired a software developer to create a malware program that would override AT&T’s upgraded system. The malware program was installed without authorization on AT&T’s computer system and made it easier to unlock a larger number of phones quickly and efficiently.

AT&T employees who were working with Fahd offered up confidential information that allowed Fahd and his software developer to tailor the malware specifically for AT&T’s system.

A forensic analyst for the company shows that roughly 1,900,033 phones were unlocked by Fahd and the bribed AT&T employees. The company also calculated that losses of unpaid phone installments were around $201,500,000. The over $2 million loss does not include unpaid money from lost service contracts.

Authorities say that because they were only able to recover a limited amount of records, they are able to show that Fahad made roughly $5.3 million from the scheme. However, Fahd’s gain is likely higher. Prosecutors say that Fahd used the money to live a lavish lifestyle including $1,000 a night hotel stays in the UAE and a watch valued at $30,000. According to the US attorney's office in Seattle, Fahd also bragged that he spent $100,000 to hire popstar Jay Sean to sing at his wedding.

Fahad explained his actions in a letter to U.S. District Judge Robert Lasnik who described his scheme as a “terrible cybercrime over an extended period.”

“Over time, I became obsessed with the money and any thought that I was doing wrong disappeared,” Fahd explained. “I did not know it, but I was on a path to self-destruction. Worse yet, my misconduct destroyed the lives of those around me.”