commsrisk.com - A joint press conference organized on Sunday by the Technology Crime Suppression Division of the Thai police and AIS, the country’s largest mobile operator, shared the results of another operation to locate and capture a fake base station being used to send fraudulent SMS messages. The operation culminated with the arrest of two young Thai men and the seizure of one SMS blaster from their car.
The operation was instigated by a member of the public who advised they had received a scam message. On August 8, the SMS blaster was pinpointed in a Mazda vehicle driving along New Petchburi Road, a major thoroughfare in Bangkok. The vehicle was followed and police arrested its two occupants, both in their early 20’s, when they stopped at a gas station in Bangkok’s Bang Phlat District.
The fake base station was used to send scam messages impersonating banks and comms providers. The messages claimed recipients had received a prize or had earned loyalty points that needed to be redeemed before they expired. These are familiar themes that have also been used for SMS blaster scams in other countries. Victims who clicked the link in the messages were directed to a phishing website. The criminals’ goal is to obtain the banking details of victims so their bank accounts can be plundered.
One of the arrested men told the police that they had been recruited via Telegram messages from a Chinese man who paid them THB2,500 (USD75) a day. Both men admitted the SMS blaster had been driven around on three separate occasions, the earliest of which was August 2 of this year. A spokesperson for AIS stated the device they were using had an effective range of 1-2km and was capable of sending over 20,000 SMS messages a day. Photographs of the arrest and the equipment are reproduced at the bottom of this article.
An industry insider revealed to Commsrisk that Thai telcos have been discouraged from sharing as much information about SMS blaster raids as previously. Public awareness of the risks posed by SMS blasters is higher in Thailand than many other countries because of well-publicized police busts and a concerted effort to warn phone users not to click on hyperlinks in suspicious SMS messages. However, there is now concern that revealing the details of anti-crime operations is helping the criminals to adapt their techniques to better avoid detection.
Cynical telcos that prioritize profits over public safety want splashy news stories about police raids and the arrest of low-level criminals because it creates the appearance that the war against networked crime can be won using these tactics. Responsible professionals understand that detecting the radio comms devices used to commit crime is only a palliative and not a genuine solution. If a radio device is already being used to send fraudulent messages then telcos and the authorities are choosing to react to crime instead of preventing it.
Thai law enforcement has wisely adopted a proactive strategy supported by the country’s telcos. This involved criminalizing the possession of SMS blasters and simboxes before using border controls to stop them being imported into Thailand. However, Thailand’s porous borders with Cambodia and Myanmar, which both serve as safe havens for scam compounds, makes it harder to prevent new scam equipment being smuggled into the country.
The resources that Thailand has devoted to detecting SMS blasters should not be underestimated. But it also shows that relying upon the speedy detection of radio comms equipment used by scammers will never be sufficient. AIS is working with police to find SMS blasters within just a few days of them being activated but gangs keep coming back with more.
Seizing equipment and imprisoning low-level goons does not discourage the criminal bosses that orchestrate these scams. They soon hire new foot soldiers to operate newly-despatched scam tech. Every success in locating radio equipment prompts the criminals to elaborate tactics that make them harder to find next time. Thailand’s experience demonstrates that every country will need to adopt a comprehensive approach to prohibiting and interrupting the supply of radio comms devices that have very few legitimate uses.
This case has been added to the SMS blaster map on our Global Fraud Dashboard. We use AI-powered search to maintain the most comprehensive and up-to-date compendium of reports of fake base stations being used to send SMS messages.
Les arnaques avec un faux SMS annonçant une contravention à régler ont fait de nombreuses victimes ces derniers mois. A l’image d’une retraitée, qui a perdu 3000 francs dans l’affaire, comme le relate la «Tribune de Genève» lundi. Le message provenant de sites frauduleux, comme «amendes.ch», «parkings-vd.com» ou «parkings-ge.com», annonce au destinataire qu’il doit s’acquitter de 40 francs et l’invite à cliquer sur un lien. Il s’agit en réalité d’un hameçonnage permettant aux malfrats d’accéder aux données bancaires des victimes.
Plus de 220 personnes ont annoncé avoir fait les frais de cette arnaque à Genève et dans le canton de Vaud, rapporte le quotidien genevois. Le coût total des dommages s’élève à 3,6 millions de francs. Pour éviter la fraude, avait indiqué la police vaudoise notamment, il est recommandé de ne jamais cliquer sur les liens proposés, de bloquer le correspondant et de supprimer le messager.
A criminal has been sentenced at Inner London Crown Court to over a year in prison for operating a SMS Blaster to conduct a mass smishing campaign against victims with the intent to harvest their personal details to be used in fraud.
The sentencing follows an investigation and arrest by the Dedicated Card and Payment Crime Unit (DCPCU), a specialist banking industry sponsored police unit.
The conviction was achieved thanks to the officers from the DCPCU working with mobile network operators including BT, Virgin Media O2, VodafoneThree and Sky as well as the National Cyber Security Centre and Ofcom.
Between 22 and 27 March 2025 Ruichen Xiong, a student from China had installed an SMS Blaster in his vehicle to commit smishing fraud, targeting tens of thousands of potential victims.
Xiong drove around the Greater London area in a Black Honda CR-V. This vehicle was used to hold and transport an SMS Blaster around in the boot.
An SMS Blaster allows offenders to send fraudulent text messages to phones within the vicinity of the equipment and acts as an illegitimate phone mast to send messages. The blaster will draw mobile devices away from legitimate networks by appearing to have a stronger signal. By doing so, the criminal is then able to send a text message to the victim's phone.
The equipment was programmed to send out SMS messages to victims within a nearby radius of the blaster, designed to look like trustworthy messages from genuine organisations, such as government bodies, where the victim was encouraged to click a link. The link would subsequently take them to a malicious site that was designed to harvest their personal details.
Twilio has denied in a statement for BleepingComputer that it was breached after a threat actor claimed to be holding over 89 million Steam user records with one-time access codes.
The threat actor, using the alias Machine1337 (also known as EnergyWeaponsUser), advertised a trove of data allegedly pulled from Steam, offering to sell it for $5,000.
When examining the leaked files, which contained 3,000 records, BleepingComputer found historic SMS text messages with one-time passcodes for Steam, including the recipient's phone number.
Owned by Valve Corporation, Steam is the world's largest digital distribution platform for PC games, with over 120 million monthly active users.
Valve did not respond to our requests for a comment on the threat actor's claims.
Independent games journalist MellolwOnline1, who is also the creator of the SteamSentinels community group that monitors abuse and fraud in the Steam ecosystem, suggests that the incident is a supply-chain compromise involving Twilio.
MellowOnline1 pointed to technical evidence in the leaked data that indicates real-time SMS log entries from Twilio's backend systems, hypothesizing a compromised admin account or abuse of API keys.
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