New Smish: New York Department of Revenue
As I was visiting SmishTank to report the most recent SMish that I had received (an iMessage from a +27 South African telephone number claiming to be from ParkMobile) I noticed there had been many recent submissions from the New York Department of Revenue. SmishTank is operated by Professor Muhammad Lutfor ... Read More
New Smish: New York Department of Revenue
As I was visiting SmishTank to report the most recent SMish that I had received (an iMessage from a +27 South African telephone number claiming to be from ParkMobile) I noticed there had been many recent submissions from the New York Department of Revenue. SmishTank is operated by Professor Muhammad Lutfor ... Read More
SMS Pools and what the US Secret Service Really Found Around New York
Last week the United Nations General Assembly kicked off in New York City. On the first day, a strange US Secret Service press conference revealed that they had seized 300 SIM Servers with 100,000 SIM cards. Various media outlets jumped on the idea that this was some state-sponsored sleeper cell ... Read More
Postal Thief Arrested in Oregon
The case caught my eye with the headline in the Oregon Live trumpeting: "Mail theft suspect in Portland made daring 13th-floor balcony escape, later arrested" and saying that the suspect's apartment contained ONE HUNDRED SEVENTY POSTAL KEYS! But Michael John Peters is not the type of mail thief that I ... Read More
Microsoft DCU’s Takedown of RaccoonO365
When I saw the name of the Microsoft Digital Crime Unit's latest target, "RaccoonO365" I probably reacted to it differently than most. With the help of a friend in Lagos, we've been watching the money launderers and things have reached a point that they now refer to what we previously ... Read More
Indian Call Center Scammers partner with Chinese Money Launderers
At the end of August 2025, The US Attorney's office in San Diego announced four indictments against members of a Chinese organized crime ring that stole at least $65 million from thousands of older Americans. The case was notable because the US Attorney credited two YouTube channels with the leads ... Read More
Attorney Generals go after Bitcoin ATMs for supporting Fraud
On 08SEP2025, the District of Columbia's Attorney General filed a lawsuit against Athena, a "Bitcoin ATM machine" provider with 4100+ BTMs installed. Athena charges as much as a 26% fee when someone deposits cash to buy cryptocurrency. More importantly, the lawsuit claims that 93% of all deposits into Athena “BTMs” ... Read More
Chinese Guarantee Syndicates and the Fruit Machine
When I was speaking to a group of Bank Security people in New York City yesterday, I mentioned "machine rooms" -- which are rooms full of Apple iPhones that are used to send iMessage phishing spam. Someone in the audience asked "Where would they get that many phones?" The kids ... Read More
California Tax Refund Mobile Phish
A new round of mobile phish is imitating the State of California's "Franchise Tax Board" in a round of phishing sites that are gaining prominence in the past few days. I visited ftb.ca-gov-sg[.]top/notice from a burner phone to see how the scheme works (the page doesn't load from the Windows ... Read More
Chinese SMS Spammers Go Mobile
CommsRisk once more has a story today about how Chinese organized crime is recruiting people online to drive around with SMS Blasters installed in their vehicles. https://commsrisk.com/thais-caught-with-smishing-sms-blaster-say-chinese-boss-paid-75-per-day/In many countries, notably NOT the United States, government telecom regulations has made a significant impact on scammers by blocking the scam and fraud campaigns ... Read More
