In a recent case a suspect was tracked to the Houston area via his cell phone and we had a strong feeling this guy was trying to make it to Mexico.
Yesterday someone locally received a call on their phone 52 1234567890. (Only the 52 is legit) 52 is the International Code for Mexico, but before we were able to confirm where the call originated from someone said “Maybe it’s a Mexican cell phone.”
Now the Marshalls have confirmed the call originated from a Mexican landline, but I have a couple of questions I wanted to ask.
If I purchased a cell phone in Mexico and came to the US to use it does anyone know if the Caller ID on the called party’s handset would show 52 in the displayed number?
Would the handset work here in the US? (CDMA)
Would it make a difference if the person holding the handset was right on the Southern border and the phone was hitting off an antenna in Mexico? (CDMA)
What if you had a Mexican SIM card and either used it in Mexican GSM handset or put it in a US GSM handset?
Do investigators ever run into situations like this in Europe?
52 1234567890. (Only the 52 is legit) 52 is the International Code for Mexico
Ed, with respect, your wording is confusing, can you help, please. Do we deduce 1234567890 has been adopted by you for this thread to anonymise the target number in your case or are you actually saying that is the target number that came up as the CLI?
Now the Marshalls have confirmed the call originated from a Mexican landline
Where did they (the Marshalls) check if you have thoughts that the resources they are using might be incomplete?
Does that take account of
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Would the handset work here in the US? (CDMA)
Would it make a difference if the person holding the handset was right on the Southern border and the phone was hitting off an antenna in Mexico? (CDMA)
What if you had a Mexican SIM card and either used it in Mexican GSM handset or put it in a US GSM handset?
Do investigators ever run into situations like this in Europe?
- US has CDMA coverage
- Border coverage, you might think about (if you are convinced it is a mobile) checking roaming agreements between operators (good luck on that one)
- CLI is network based operation not a handset/SIM issue in the scenario you are discussing
Greg,
Thanks for the response. Sorry for being unclear, but there doesn't seem to be any Spoofing issue. The number displayed on the local handset was a 12 digit number with the first being 52. I didn't want to display the actual number so in the example I gave I changed the last 10 from 1 through 0.
The Marshalls have agents in Mexico City and through there resources they were able to determine the number originated from a landline in Mexico. Prior to this confirmation one of the guys was trying to think outside the box and asked the question about it possibly being a Mexican cell phone operating in the US.
Since Tennessee is not a border State and this is the first time I have ever been exposed to an International case I had to ask those questions I listed above.
What's CLI? (Country Location Identifier??)
If CLI is network based I would assume it is possiblt to have a Mexican hanset operate in the US, but I would think it would have to be right next to the Southern border to communicate with an antenna in the "Mexican" network? But without any sort of Spoofing involved could the handset operate inland and display the Country code?
Thanks!
Apologies, ED. CLI stands for Calling Line Identification and in mobile terms is found in the following standards relevant to CLIP (Calling Line Identification Presentation), which is relevant to your discussion as to the way in which CLI is presented in mobile terms
GSM (R98) reference
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3G/GSM reference
http//
Although I wont stick my neck too far on this one, as I haven't investigated your matter, I have doubts your proposition relates to a mobile phone.
The codes allocated for Mexico mobile country code and mobile network codes are for IMSI are
334 01 Nextel Nextel México iDEN 800
334 020 Telcel América Móvil TDMA 850 / GSM 1900 / UMTS 850
334 03 movistar Pegaso Comunicaciones y Sistemas CDMA2000 1900 / CDMA2000 800 / GSM 1900 / UMTS 850
334 04 Iusacell / Unefon Iusacell / Unefon CDMA2000 800 / CDMA2000 1900
334 050 Iusacell Iusacell GSM 850 / GSM 1900
Therefore, at first instance, the initial observation would be to suggest the number in your case isn't of a structure traceable to an IMSI.
In situations like this you can look at the references below and enter the target phone number in your case and see what is returned
http//
https://
If the target person was using a standard mobile/smart phone to have calls made to it diverted to a pre-programmed destination number then the problem still arises that this mobile then becomes the calling party and may have its CLI (if not restricted) sent forward to be visible to the called party.
For a mobile on the border but using a Mast (so to speak) to send communications on a visited public mobile network (roaming) the network can use the calling party's CLI number subject to roaming agreements, but that doesn't overcome the 'fact' that when a mobile makes a call the subscriber IMSI/TMSI is used by the network and the network then cross-references the IMSI to an MSISDN ( http//
The target number you quote is insufficient to give a clear opinion and why I was endeavouring to clarify matters at the outset of my first reply.
For instance for Orange Customer Service the CLI mobile number could appear as in the following scenario
+447973100150
(Country Code) +44
(Mobile Network Dial Code) *(0) 7973
(Destination Number) 100150
* used for local dialled calls
Following the above scenario, the mobile you propose may be associated with the Mexico CLI I would have expected to see
(Country Code) +52
(Mobile Network Dial Code) 0000
(Destination Number) 000000
Sorry for the long, winding discussion but if you are in a live case I really don't want to compromise anything by asking you to identify the phone number you have.