Back in September, the MCMC has announced the banning of the use of URLs in SMS. That probably didn’t stop some of us from continuing to get them, with the messages seemingly coming directly from telcos. The potential good news is that we may see less of these, as four men have been detained in connection with an SMS scam while impersonating a telco.
According to The Star, the syndicate used a base transceiver station (BTS) to generate said fake messages bearing the telco’s name. The four men arrested were locals aged between 39 and 46, who were the syndicate’s supervisor, assistant supervisor, driver and operator of the fake BTS. Seized alongside them were some items including three batteries, two power inverters, two GSM modules and two SUVs.
To carry out the scam, the perpetrators “were paid RM300 daily” to drive around in highly populated areas with the fake BTS device. On site, said device would be turned on, automatically sending fake SMS to mobile phones in the area. The police conducted raids in several locations within the Klang Valley to curb its spread.
The report cites PDRM’s Commercial Crime Investigation Department (CCID)’s director Ramli Mohamed Yoosuf as saying that an investigation was launched following a police report lodged earlier this month. The 30-year old victim claims to have received a scam text, seemingly from a telco, claiming he had accumulated points that can be redeemed.
The text got the victim to click on a link, which led to a fake page asking for his banking details , as well as an OTP, following which the victim lost about RM1,500. Overall, the syndicate is believed to be involved in at least 12 such cases with losses totalling up to RM116,271.
(Source: The Star)
