A Miami businessman has been accused of breaking into the computers of VoIP service providers and reselling stolen minutes to unsuspecting customers.

Edwin Andres Pena allegedly netted over $1m as a result of the scam.

According to prosecutors, Pena used brute force attacks to flood VoIP providers with test calls in order to discover working prefix codes used authorise calls on the network.

Working with a hacker, Pena is accused of identifying vulnerable computers and reprogramming them to accept VoIP traffic so that it appeared to originate from a third party.

Using the prefix codes, Pena routed voice traffic through the compromised third-party network.

Pena apparently sold more than 10 million minutes of VoIP calls at heavily discounted rates. If convicted he faces up to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.