Hong Kong Police arrested a 31 year old local man on July 30 after finding him driving through Tseung Kwan O with an SMS blaster operating inside his car. Officers seized the SMS blaster and a mobile phone used to control it. Initial forensic analysis showed the device had sent more than 6,000 smishing messages.

The messages impersonated official WhatsApp notifications and claimed the recipient’s account would be deleted because it had violated the platform’s rules. A link took victims to a fake WhatsApp website that requested their telephone number and displayed an eight-digit pairing code. Victims were instructed to enter the code into the genuine WhatsApp application, causing their account to be linked to a device controlled by the criminals.

The criminals impersonated the victims when asking their friends and relatives for money. Police linked the SMS blaster to 16 cases involving victims aged between 29 and 71. Their combined losses exceeded HKD300,000 (USD38,500), with one victim losing HKD50,000 (USD6,400).

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.