March 11--A Peabody patrolman on an early morning routine traffic stop netted a federal fugitive on the U.S. Secret Service's Top 10 wanted list -- the department's highest-profile collar in decades.
Sgt. Vincent Patermo, a 20-year Peabody police veteran, yesterday arrested Miguel Jesurum, 30, of Bronx, N.Y., one of the accused masterminds behind a $250 million cellphone cloning scheme that was used to set up a black market for international phone calls.
"I think it was his only arrest of the night, and he was pretty surprised by it," said Peabody Police Lt. Bill Cook. "There haven't been any big Top 10 wanted-list arrests here that I can remember for at least the past 20 years. It was a great pinch."
The fleeing fugitive originally told Patermo his name was Pedro Berroa after the officer pulled him over about 2:45 a.m. on Route 1 northbound near Interstate 95, Cook said. Jesurum was charged with unlicensed driving and the department's fingerprinting machine, which connects to an FBI database, revealed Jesurum's true identity back at the station, Cook said.
Jesurum was one of 12 people charged in a scheme to steal account data from tens of thousands of cellphone users to support a black market in international calling.
Federal prosecutors in New York announced the Secret Service's investigation into the sophisticated theft network last month. The Secret Service is charged with safeguarding the nation's financial infrastructure and payment systems in addition to protecting top political leaders. Efforts to reach the Secret Service were unsuccessful yesterday.
From at least 2009 to September 2011, Jesurum and 11 other suspects reprogrammed new cellphones with customers' stolen phone codes and used the system to sell black market, low-priced international calling rates for Cuba, Jamaica and other countries, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office. A Chinese telecommunications company also paid several suspects in the criminal network for the black market calls, according to the criminal complaint.
Jesurum is being held at Essex County House of Corrections. Prosecutors have said Jesurum could face up to 20 years in prison if convicted on charges of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and aggravated identity theft in the black-market scheme.
Copyright 2012 - Boston Herald
