You mean like in the USA?
> ...bribed AT&T employees at a call center in Bothell, Washington, to "use their network credentials and exceed their authorized access to AT&T's computers to submit large numbers of fraudulent and unauthorized unlock requests on behalf of the conspiracy and to install malware and unauthorized hardware on AT&T's systems," according to the indictment.
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/att-employees-bribed-1m-unlo...
Not sure how bribing employees to unlock phones early is comparable to defrauding elderly people.
Read my comment further:
> ..install malware and unauthorized hardware on AT&T's systems
That's not as harmless as unlocking phones early. A major carrier that has access to texts, geolocations, and call logs being hacked like that is extremely concerning.