By Oluwatosin Maliki
A 39-year-old man has been busted by the Australian police for alleged fraudulent activities.
The detectives nabbed the man at his Moorebank property in Sydney’s southwest on Tuesday, after executing a search warrant at his home around 6am.
On Wednesday, the Cyber Crime Squad Detectives following an investigation, charged the man for sending 17 million scam text messages, to almost every adult in the country.
According to the new South Wales police, the unnamed 39-year-old was solely responsible for all the scam texts that have been plaguing mobile phone users across the country.
Also, it was learnt that the text messages included fake links claiming to be from Australia Post or toll road operators and were allegedly sent using “SIM boxes”, which has the ability to send tens of thousands of messages per day.
The items were seized by the operatives to undergo further forensic examination, while the man was charged with using networked equipment to “commit serious offence.”
Moreover, he was granted conditional bail to appear before Liverpool Local Court on January 17 next year.
According to Jason Smith, commander of the police Cybercrime Squad, “SMS phishing is one of the most common tactics deployed by scammers to obtain banking and other personal information from a victim.”
“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,” he added.