In August 2025 Thai police arrested two Thai men with equipment in a car. Police described the kit as having four parts: a battery or portable power unit, a mobile tower simulator, a signal amplifier, and a mobile phone used to control the content of the messages.

The suspects said they were paid daily by a Chinese man who hired them for the work. Police stated that the device could send messages within a radius of 1 kilometre, and the suspects admitted driving around Bangkok broadcasting the signal, concentrating on the Sathorn, Rama 4, Sukhumvit and Phetchaburi areas, sending 20,000 messages a day.

Police laid six charges: jointly making, possessing, using, importing, exporting or trading transmitting equipment; jointly establishing a radio communication station; jointly using radio frequencies without authorisation; jointly attempting fraud; jointly intercepting signals; and jointly committing the offence of secret society membership.

Source: https://www.thaipbs.or.th/news/content/355225

The method is not new in Thailand. In May 2023 the authorities announced the dismantling of a gang that impersonated Kasikornbank to send scam SMS messages and drain accounts. Six offenders were arrested, along with four cars fitted with false base stations and five computer systems used to commit the offence.

The Equipment Is Illegal at the Border

The acting Secretary-General of the NBTC stated that telecommunications equipment of this type requires an import permit, and that in the case of false base stations the NBTC will categorically refuse permission to import, because it is treated as a serious danger to the public, in the same way as mobile signal jammers.

That means every device criminals are using is contraband brought in illegally, which requires vigilance from several agencies working together, the Customs Department in particular. In May 2023 the NBTC Office joined police officers in inspecting the sale of telecommunications equipment at MBK Center to prevent smuggled goods being sold there.

As for the offences, using this equipment breaches not only the Radiocommunications Act but also the law on fraud and the Computer Crime Act, which carry heavy criminal penalties.

Source: https://www.thairath.co.th/money/economics/thailand_econ/2697221

What Ordinary People Can Do

The Canadian Centre for Cyber Security gives four pieces of advice. The first is the one that strikes at the root: if your phone offers the option, turn off 2G network connections, because this attack has to drag the handset down to 2G first. If the handset never goes there, the attack cannot begin.

Second, use phishing-resistant multi-factor authentication, such as an authenticator app or a hardware security key, rather than receiving codes by SMS.

Third, do not click links or attachments in unsolicited messages. Fourth, if in doubt, contact the organisation through its own official channels, such as the number listed on its real website, rather than replying to the message.

What these cases teach in crime science terms is that when offenders meet one wall, they look for a way around it. As operators became better at filtering scam SMS, offenders began building their own towers so that no filtering would apply. Prevention therefore has to move upstream as well: intercepting the equipment at import, watching for abnormal signals from the operator side, and helping the public understand that a message arriving with a link may not have come from the network they pay for at all.