By Dilip Mistry

Chinese police in Dalian have seized a 14 strong gang of alleged fraudsters involved in a fake SMS plot which is believed to have netted 1 million yuan ($164,100) since October.

The gang is believed to have carried out at least 10 counts of text message fraud in just over a month using mobile base station technology.

The base stations, comprised of a host computer, a laptop and a signal transmitter, was placed in a car and driven into crowded downtown areas. There the fraudsters used any number, including customer service numbers of banks and telecom companies, to send bulk SMS to all mobile phone users within a given radius area.

The fake messages, in one case pertaining to be from the ‘Industrial and Commerce Bank of China’ requested victims update their banking information, card number, passwords and other personal information via a fake website.