Police in Australia have prosecuted a man from suburban Sydney with sending 17 million scam text messages, one for nearly every adult in the country.
Police in New South Wales said the anonymous 39-year-old was solely responsible for the scam texts that have plagued mobile phone customers across the country.
The SMS allegedly contained phony URLs purporting to be from Australia Post or toll road operators, and they were transmitted using “SIM boxes” capable of sending tens of thousands of messages every day.
The man was charged with “committing serious offence” by utilizing networked devices and was given bail.
“SMS phishing is one of the most common tactics deployed by scammers to obtain banking and other personal information from a victim,” said Jason Smith, commander of the police Cybercrime Squad.
“SIM boxes can hold over 250 active SIM cards and will typically send out up to 150,000 messages per day containing phishing lures to various scams.”