A team of scammers was recently arrested by the police, accused of having stolen the data of thousands of people aboard a spy car.
We are dealing here with a real organized gang scam. It is in any case the qualification which was retained by justice to indict five individuals, two women and three men aged 21 to 31 years. They, using a spy car circulating in the Paris region, captured all the smartphones they came across, thus siphoning off their data to set up an SMS scam system.
A major “SMiShing” operation
The seemingly innocuous car carried a device theoretically reserved for the intelligence services and the fight against terrorism, more specifically an “IMSI catcher”. This formidable electrical device of efficiency makes it possible to recover all the telephone numbers near the device to spy on a person without them being aware.
The machine, which takes the form of a mobile (portable) relay antenna, can then intercept communications in the surrounding area. Properly used, it can provide valuable intelligence to military forces. In the wrong hands, however, it can be misused for fraudulent purposes.
This was indeed the case of the five individuals arrested a few weeks ago in the Paris region. The latter collected telephone numbers belonging to Ile-de-France residents and then sent fraudulent SMS (a technique called SMiShing) on behalf of Health Insurance.
16,000 people affected and pensioners trapped
Individuals have taken care to connect their antenna in 2G (and not in 4G), because this generation is much less secure. The scam will have lasted a good year, in Paris and in its inner suburbs. Over this period, the team of scammers allegedly sucked up the data of 16,000 people.
But the gang didn’t just siphon off other drivers’ phone numbers. An investigation entrusted to the territorial security of Hauts-de-Seine is interested in the other activities of the thugs, who seem to have used their skills to trap retirees. This time, they pretended to be bankers and policemen with the aim of stealing their jewelry and bank cards.
Sources: BFM Paris, The JDD
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