Yesterday (24th February), four men appeared at Inner London Crown Court for sentencing following scamming commuters.

Early last year, an off-duty British Transport Police detective foiled the fraudsters’ plan when travelling through a London tube station.

They used ‘SMS blasters’, which send mass messages with fraudulent links, including those from Royal Mail, to scam commuters out of thousands.

The detective spotted a man with a suitcase on the Northern line platform at King’s Cross Underground station, which was perforated with holes and emitting a green flash.

It was reported as suspicious, and the suitcase was seized, revealing it to contain an SMS blaster.

This happened again just two weeks later at Baker Street station, leading to another arrest.

The investigation launched revealed the four involved and saw 10,832 gift cards loaded with over £80,000 in profits seized

The head of the group, Zhijia Fan, 48, has been sentenced to 4 years and 8 months in jail.

His other two partners, Daoyan Shang, 20, and Wan Mohd Hafiz, 41, were jailed for 2 years, 10 months and 1 year and 2 months, respectively.

A two-year sentence and a two-year suspension also went to Gatis Lauks, 25.

 “These organised scammers concealed SMS blasters in suitcases in a bid to plunder the bank accounts of unsuspecting commuters.  

“Their plot to defraud passengers was foiled by one of our vigilant detectives who was off duty when he spotted the device at a London Tube station.

“An extensive investigation followed, drawing on specialists from across BTP, and we built a case so robust the gang had no choice but to plead guilty.

“These convictions were achieved thanks to the close work our detectives undertook with mobile network operators including BT, Virgin Media, O2, and Vodafone-Three, Sky, as well as the National Cyber Security Centre and Ofcom.”

BTP Detective Inspector Tim Weekes