Overview
- Google filed a civil complaint in Manhattan on June 12, 2026, asking a federal court to shut down Outsider Enterprise and obtain injunctive relief against the operation’s infrastructure.
- The company says the China‑based network ran a phishing‑as‑a‑service on Telegram that supplied prebuilt templates, hosting and spam tools so novices could launch large SMS phishing campaigns.
- Google’s filings allege members used Gemini and other AI tools to generate code and realistic fake sites, and the company tracked about 1.59 million related URLs between November 14, 2025 and April 14, 2026.
- The FBI, Google and partners carried out coordinated takedowns that seized domains, a Shopify storefront and roughly $100,000 in wallets while U.S. carriers moved to block the malicious texts.
- Officials say the operation caused huge impact — Google and the FBI cite millions of malicious messages, thousands of fake sites, an estimated 3.87 million stolen payment cards and roughly $1.9 billion in losses — and Google is urging Congress to pass new bipartisan laws to address AI‑enabled scams.