Litigator Matthew Deblinger had been handed a seemingly impossible undertaking: Track down the parties responsible for spoofing his law firm’s phone number in hundreds of thousands of telemarketing calls selling insurance to unsuspecting Miami-Dade residents.

Spoofing is a process by which fraudsters mask their identity to make it appear as if their communication is coming from another source. In this case, international con artists used the law firm’s number to contact elderly targets and gather personal information to generate insurance sales.