Plymouth Man Indicted for His Role in International Conspiracy to Traffic Counterfeit Computer Network Devices

MINNEAPOLIS - A Plymouth man has been indicted for engaging in an international counterfeit access device fraud scheme, announced First Assistant U.S. Attorney Lisa D. Kirkpatrick.

According to court documents, Benjamin Paley, 75,who co-owned and operated GEN8 Services, Inc., an information technology business based in Plymouth, and his co-conspirators Wade Huber, 59, and David Rosenblatt, 68, engaged in an international counterfeiting scheme spanning Minnesota, North Carolina, and Ukraine, among other locations, to use and traffic in counterfeit access devices.

According to court documents, Brocade Communications Systems, Inc., a global technology company headquartered in San Jose, California, manufactured and sold computer networking products, including equipment commonly known in the technology sector as a "Brocade switch." Brocade switches are networking hardware that allow multiple devices to connect to a computer network. Switches are used to maintain computer networks across a wide variety of industries and sectors, including businesses, universities, hospitals, and government agencies. To use a Brocade switch, customers are required to purchase a license and pay a licensing fee to Brocade, which range between $1,400 to over $100,000. Counterfeiters use programs that create counterfeit software license keys to "crack the code" and generate illegitimate license key strings that are indistinguishable from Brocade's legitimate licensing tools. Counterfeit license keys are illicitly sold on the black market for a fraction of the price of a legitimate license transaction.

According to court documents, from 2014 through April 2022, Paley, Huber, Rosenblatt, and others used and trafficked in counterfeit license keys obtained with the intent to defraud Brocade and others to make money for themselves by fraudulently selling license keys at a heavily discounted rate. As part of the scheme, Rosenblatt and Huber routinely communicated with and obtained information from clients and prospective customers who wanted to purchase switches and license keys. Paley used that information to procure counterfeit license keys that enabled additional ports or functionality on the switches to be accessible to their clients. In total, Paley possessed and sold at least 3,637 counterfeit license keys for switches at amounts substantially below the market rate for legitimate license key sales, resulting in millions of dollars in financial losses to Brocade.

Paley is charged with one count of conspiracy to commit access device fraud and three counts of access device fraud. He is scheduled to make his initial appearances in U.S. District Court before Magistrate Judge Douglas L. Micko on October 10, 2024.

On November 30, 2023, and January 5, 2024, Huber and Rosenblatt, respectively, pleaded guilty before Judge John R. Tunheim to one count each of conspiracy to commit access device fraud. They will be sentenced at a later date.

This case is the result of an investigation conducted by the FBI.

The case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew S. Ebert for the District of Minnesota, Assistant Deputy Chief Adrienne Rose, and Trial Attorney Bryce Rosenbower of the Criminal Division's Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section (CCIPS).

An indictment is merely an allegation and the defendant is presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.