A 28 year old man in the Philippine city of Tarlac was arrested last week after police pretended to be potential buyers of SMS blasters he had advertised online. The police stated that 16 SMS blasters had been seized in the operation but photographs and descriptions of the equipment suggests they were simboxes rather than fake base stations. Simboxes are used by scammers to send large numbers of P2P SMS messages because improved anti-fraud controls have made it more difficult to send scam messages through A2P channels.
It is likely that the police has not differentiated between simboxes and the type of device that is most commonly described as an SMS blaster, which is a radio transceiver that operates as a fake mobile base station and which connects to any mobile phone within range so SMS messages can be sent to them. One key difference is that simboxes need to have SIM cards inserted into them so they can connect to conventional phone networks as they do not communicate with the mobile phones of targets directly, whilst SMS blasters do not contain SIM cards because they are acting as if they are providing network service without actually connecting to a mobile operator’s network. Several reports from the police and other sources mentioned the use of SIMs in conjunction with the confiscated equipment.
There has been a recent surge of Philippine law enforcement activity targeting both scam compounds and the sale of equipment used by scammers. Several recent operations involve police responding to adverts for the sale of radio devices commonly used to send illegal messages. Meanwhile, Philippine Senator Mark Villar has called for prohibitions against the use of social media to sell radio comms devices typically used by criminals. Commenting on this latest arrest, Brigadier General Bernard Yang, who is often the lead spokesperson for anti-cybercrime operations by the Philippine police, stated they will “continue to take appropriate action against the illegal sale of cybercrime tools”.
No other details were given about the arrested man except that he answers to the name of ‘Rye’. He has been charged with violations of the Cybercrime Prevention Act and the Radio Control Law of the Philippines.
A police photograph of the arrested man and confiscated equipment is shown below.
