Police have arrested and brought 44 charges against three men for allegedly operating an SMS blaster in downtown Toronto. The scheme, which began in November 2025, is the “first known instance” of an SMS blaster operating in Canada, according to the police report.

In a statement, the Toronto Police Service said it believes tens of thousands of devices were blasted with spammy text messages over several months.

SMS blasters work by spoofing cell towers and broadcasting a stronger signal than other towers in range in order to trick nearby cell phones and tablets into connecting with the blaster. Once connected to nearby devices, an SMS blaster can send out thousands of text messages, which may contain links to phishing sites that impersonate login pages of legitimate businesses. Such devices exploit security weaknesses in older 2G cellular networks to send these messages.

The scheme aimed to steal people’s usernames and passwords, including banking credentials, said Lindsay Riddell, a Detective Sergeant with the Toronto Police, in a press conference.

The police said such devices disrupt nearby cellular communications and interfere with 911 emergency services.

The police have released a photo of a similar SMS blaster found in the United Kingdom during an earlier investigation (pictured above), but declined to share a photo of the blaster found in Toronto, citing safety reasons.

Authorities said the SMS blaster was “uniquely built,” and was operated from the back of a vehicle, allowing the device to be used in multiple locations across Toronto.

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In 2024, police in Thailand arrested gang members for running a similar SMS blaster out of the back of a truck in Bangkok. The gang members reportedly blasted close to a million text messages over a three-day period.

Users can block attempts by SMS blasters by switching off their phones’ 2G cellular connectivity. Users of Apple devices can turn on Lockdown Mode to switch off their 2G radios.

Topics

Canada, Canada, cyberattack, cybersecurity, Security, sms blaster

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Zack Whittaker

Security Editor

Zack Whittaker is the security editor at TechCrunch. He also authors the weekly cybersecurity newsletter, this week in security.

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Police arrest SMS blaster crew that sent malicious messages to thousands across Toronto