Philippine investigators have arrested two Filipinos and two Chinese nationals in Metro Manila following the discovery of an SMS blaster. The National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) said agents also found drugs, a gun and additional SMS blaster components in an apartment in Las Piñas.

Agents from the NBI’s Dangerous Drug Division arrested the Filipino suspects with the rented car they used to carry the device around busy parts of Metro Manila. This led to the apartment search, where the two Chinese nationals were found. They were described as the SMS blaster’s operators.

The NBI said the group sent messages impersonating a bank, with links designed to trick recipients into providing details that could be used to access their financial accounts.

One Filipino suspect told GMA News that she worked ten hours a day for PHP2,000 (USD32). They were not given specific destinations, she said, only instructions to find crowds, so they visited shopping malls. She apologised, saying they had not wanted to do it but needed to.

Cease to resist, giving my goodbye
Drive my car into the ocean
You’ll think I’m dead, but I sail away
On a wave of mutilation

This is the final Commsrisk article. The website will continue to host the Commsrisk Global Fraud Dashboard under the stewardship of James Greenley, the software engineer who created it, for as long as he can find financial backers to support that work. Presenting reams of objective data compiled from varied international sources is the best way to build on the platform constructed during the first two decades of this website. Facts and figures need to rule; words are too messy and too easily twisted. My regular narratives about the communications sector end now, not with regret, but with pleasure. I am glad to be released to live a different life to the one that has consumed so much of me.