A silver car carrying an SMS blaster repeatedly drove slowly back and forth alongside Jakarta’s Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) route between Bundaran HI and Blok M, transmitting smishing messages directly to nearby phones. Police say the operation aimed to send 20,000 messages a day and had been running for around three months.

Jakarta Metropolitan Police disclosed the case on 2 October 2026, two months after officers stopped the car and arrested its driver on 31 July.

The scammers had chosen one of the busiest parts of Jakarta’s metro network. MRT Jakarta’s passenger figures for January 2026 ranked Dukuh Atas, Blok M and Bundaran HI as its three busiest stations, all on the section travelled by the SMS blaster car.

This is not the first SMS blaster to target people using busy public transport. In London, a transmitter concealed in a suitcase was used to send smishing messages to rush-hour Underground passengers. In Tokyo, volunteers tracked an SMS blaster vehicle travelling a route that included the railway between Shinjuku and Shibuya.

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.