Category: Computer Store

A former owner of a T-Mobile retail store in California has been found guilty of a $25 million scheme where he illegally accessed T-Mobile’s internal systems to unlock and unblock cell phones.

Argishti Khudaverdyan, 44, allegedly ran a scheme between 2014 and 2019 where he unlocked devices from the cellular networks of their vendors and enabled people to use them with other telecommunication providers.

This scheme impacted mobile carriers who offer these devices to customers at a special price or even free of charge, offsetting the cost by locking them for some time in their networks.

Additionally, Khudaverdyan unlocked devices the carriers had blocked due to their rightful owners reporting them as stolen or lost.

This action of unlocking stolen cellphones is particularly detrimental because it allows these phones to be sold on a black market, making the theft and reselling of devices very profitable.

“From August 2014 to June

LOS ANGELES – A former owner of a T-Mobile retail store in Eagle Rock has been found guilty by a jury of 14 federal criminal charges for his $25 million scheme to enrich himself by stealing T-Mobile employee credentials and illegally accessing the company’s internal computer systems to illicitly “unlock” and “unblock” cellphones, the Justice Department announced today.

Argishti Khudaverdyan, 44, of Burbank, was found guilty of one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, three counts of wire fraud, two counts of accessing a computer to defraud and obtain value, one count of intentionally accessing a computer without authorization to obtain information, one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering, five counts of money laundering, and one count of aggravated identity theft.

The jury returned the guilty verdict Friday evening in United States District Court.

According to evidence presented at his four-day trial, Khudaverdyan ran a multi-year scheme that

After being blocked (opens in new tab) for failing to register with the appropriate authorities, Steam is now back online in Indonesia. Niko Partners analyst Daniel Ahmad reported Steam’s return on Twitter, but said that the Epic Games Store and Origin are still blocked, and there’s no sign of when they’ll return.

Authorities in Indonesia granted themselves the power to force platforms to disclose user data or take down content that “disturbs public order,” and gave companies until July 20 of this year to sign on to the new regulations through the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology, also known as Kominfo. Some did, but many others, including Valve, Epic, Origin, PayPal, Yahoo, and Ubisoft, did not. Thus, they were blocked.