SpaceX and police are cooperating in investigation
New Jersey resident Kelvin Rodriguez-Moya, 35, was arrested by police on charges of trafficking 675 SpaceX Starlink terminals. According to a March 5 police report, the terminals were purchased using stolen credit card accounts or hacked Starlink payment accounts.
The arrest occurred on December 4th when Rodriguez-Moya was stopped by police while driving a vehicle containing 223 Starlink terminals. The criminal complaint alleges that the terminals had labels showing several different names but the same shipping address.
The Lawrence City Police received information about a suspiciously large number of Starlink terminals delivered to one of the houses. Detectives observed Rodriguez-Moya loading a shipment of SpaceX terminals onto a FedEx truck and trailer. Kelvin Rodriguez-Moya said he was paid $300 to transport the terminals to Newark, where he lives, for the purpose of resale. According to police, the value of 675 Starlink terminals purchased fraudulently is approximately $400,000.
Bennett Wu, director of payment risk and fraud at SpaceX, called the seizure of these terminals «the largest fraud recovery by SpaceX to date». Lawrence police told CNBC that the investigation into the trafficking of the terminals is still ongoing and investigators are working with SpaceX to determine how the terminals were acquired.