SpaceX is making headlines, and this time, the drama isn’t about CEO Elon Musk — or Mars.
Kelvin Rodriguez-Moya, 35, was arrested for allegedly illegally trafficking 675 SpaceX Starlink terminals he had purchased with stolen credit card information and hacking existing customers.
Starlink terminals are mostly used to bring internet access to remote areas around the world through SpaceX’s satellites.
The devices, which are worth an estimated $400,000, were reportedly shipped to a home in New Jersey before he attempted to transport them via pickup truck to Newark.
“Typically, what happens is, the suspect would use these devices to resell and gain some type of monetary benefit,” Lawrence Township police Chief Chris Longo said. “We received information from a resident that there was a large number of deliveries going to a residence within our town.”
Rodriguez-Moya was reportedly pulled over with roughly 220 devices in his truck while he was en route to Newark.
Rodriguez-Moya does not live at the address where the satellites were delivered, and the actual residents were unaware of what was going on.
SpaceX’s Director of Payment Risk and Fraud, Bennet Woo, dubbed the recovery of the terminals the “largest fraud recovery to date by an order of magnitude.”
Rodriguez-Moya was officially charged with receiving stolen property and trafficking stolen property (both in the second degree) and has a detention hearing set for March 8.
