UK Cybercrime Journal: SMS Blaster Gang Convicted

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 What Happened

  • Officers from the City of London Police’s Dedicated Card and Payment Crime Unit (DCPCU) secured the conviction of a man who used an SMS Blaster device to send fraudulent text messages as part of an organised criminal operation in London.
  • The conviction relates to an investigation that previously led to the sentencing of Ruichen Xiong in July 2025, who was apprehended while driving a vehicle in North London as the device was in operation. During that incident, officers in the vicinity received fraudulent text messages purporting to be from HMRC.
  • Ruichen Xiong was a student from China who drove around London using the SMS Blaster between 22 and 27 March 2025, sending messages to tens of thousands of potential victims.
  • Following Xiong’s arrest and subsequent conviction, enquiries identified another individual called Di Li who was a key organiser. Li facilitated Xiong’s involvement by arranging access to the device, assisting with obtaining a vehicle, and supporting his day-to-day living costs.
  • Xiong had accrued significant gambling debts after arriving in the UK as a student. To pay off his debts, Li instructed that he could repay what he owed by driving routes in a car with the SMS Blaster.
  • On 20 August 2025, officers searched Li’s home address, where digital evidence was recovered showing communications between Li and Xiong relating to the deployment of the SMS blaster. Li was arrested on 1 September 2025 and charged with offences linked to the operation.
  • At the court trial, Li’s defence was that the device was intended for “advertising” purposes and described himself as a middleman acting on behalf of an individual based in China. He maintained that he had been merely attempting to help Xiong repay his debts.

Analyst Comment

An SMS Blaster acts as a portable mobile phone mast that forces nearby mobile devices to connect to it by silently downgrading it to 2G while they try to connect to 5G or LTE. By doing so, criminals can bypass safeguards designed to block malicious senders and harmful links, enabling them to deliver fraudulent messages directly to victims nearby without needing their phone numbers. The SMS Blaster allow an operator to customise all aspects of the messages, so they can make it look like it has come from a genuine organisation like HMRC, the UK tax authority.


SMS Blasters are a relatively new technology for scammers. Police in the UK only encountered them for the first time in 2025, but they have been used in other parts of the world. SMS Blaster are also a type of IMSI catcher that mirrors the capability of law enforcement tools such as a Stingray.


When used in busy metropolitan areas, they allow criminals to easily send out SMS phishing messages to hundreds of people at a time. These SMS messages typically have a malicious link that host scam websites that trick victims into entering their personal details. These details can then used by fraudsters to make payments, steal funds, or resell it to others.


This report also highlights the concerning trend of organised cybercrime gangs from China are actively hunting for individuals who are financially vulnerable (like students with gambling debts) to conduct high-risk in-person operations. 


Defensive Takeaways

  • Block and Report: If you receive a suspicious text message, do not engage with it. Instead, forward it to 7726, a free reporting service, and block the number.
  • Move Away from SMS: If your organisation relies on SMS for One-Time Passcodes (OTPs), this threat highlights that the SMS sender ID can be perfectly spoofed locally. Organisations should migrate to authenticator apps, hardware tokens, or application push notifications to avoid spoofing.
  • Proactive Takedown Programs: Since the attack relies on hosting malicious links to harvest credentials, defenders can perform proactive domain monitoring. Detecting and taking down lookalike domains immediately minimises the impact.


Relevant Sources

  1. https://www.cityoflondon.police.uk/news/city-of-london/news/2026/june/man-jailed-for-role-in-sms-blaster-fraud-operation-following-city-of-london-police-investigation
  2. https://www.ukfinance.org.uk/news-and-insight/press-release/police-warn-sms-scams-following-prison-sentence-criminal-who
  3. https://www.theguardian.com/money/2025/jun/24/police-sms-scams-blaster-texts-smishing


Relevant CTI Resources

  1. https://www.m3aawg.org/blog/SMSBlasterEngagementSeries

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