Overview
- Toronto police said Thursday that three men now face 44 charges after a probe into portable devices that sent mass scam texts across the Greater Toronto Area.
- Officers executed search warrants on March 31 in Markham and Hamilton, seized several devices and electronic evidence, arrested two suspects at the scenes, and said a third later surrendered.
- An SMS blaster acts like a fake cell tower that nearby phones connect to, letting scammers push texts that link to counterfeit sites built to steal banking logins and other credentials.
- Investigators reported tens of thousands of phones connected to the rogue gear and more than 13 million network disruptions that could have blocked calls to real networks, including 911.
- Detectives said they are still identifying victims and urged people to avoid links in unsolicited texts, noting this is the first SMS blaster detection in Canada and a sign of more mobile, hard-to-spot fraud tactics.