Text Scammers Make Tens of Thousands a Month – and Spend it on Designer Shoes and Bags

The boxes are stacked neatly, row after row: Gucci heels in bright reds, handbags in supple leather, designer labels peeking from every corner. It looks like the back room of a luxury boutique – until Detective Chief Inspector Paul Curtis explains where it all came from.

“They don’t keep money,” he says, surveying the shelves. “They spend it here and now.”

This is an evidence room belonging to the UK’s Dedicated Card and Payment Crime Unit (DCPCU), and every pair of stilettos and monogrammed bag represents someone’s stolen savings. Many of the items were bought with the proceeds of smishing – text-based scams that have become one of the most profitable forms of fraud in the country. The unit has seized between 8,500 and 10,000 items from raids tied to these cases, a stark illustration of how lucrative the crimes have become.

A Simple Text, a Huge Payday

Smishing blends SMS technology with the tactics of phishing: fake messages pretending to be from banks or major companies, designed to trick people into sharing passwords, PINs or account details.

One recent case the DCPCU investigated shows just how staggering the profits can be.
A student, Ruichen Xiong, drove around London with equipment capable of sending tens of thousands of fraudulent texts at once. In just five days, he pushed out 15,000 scam messages. According to Curtis, operations like this can bring in up to £100,000 a month.

Xiong pleaded guilty to fraud by representation and was jailed for 58 weeks. Yet cases like his barely scratch the surface. Ofcom reports that half of UK mobile users received at least one suspicious text between late 2024 and early 2025.

‘It Felt Like a Violation’

For victims, the emotional fallout can be worse than the financial loss.

Gideon Rabinowitz, a 64-year-old former IT manager from Berkshire, remembers how quickly the scam unfolded. A message supposedly from his bank asked him to confirm whether he recognised a transaction. Within a few hours, he was £1,400 down.

“I felt like a massive fool,” he says. “It really shook me… I don’t know who to trust now.”

He later learned that scammers knew his name and address – details that made the message feel legitimate and the betrayal even more painful.

How the Scams Work

Behind the scenes, smishing is fuelled by two main tools:

• SIM farms – racks of SIM cards that automate the sending of thousands of texts.
• SMS blasters – devices that mimic mobile phone towers, tricking nearby phones into connecting so they can be flooded with fraudulent messages.

Both tools allow criminals to operate at scale and vanish quickly, making the crimes notoriously hard to investigate.

A Rapid Crime, a Slow Response

Cybersecurity experts say law enforcement alone cannot stem the tide.

“Smishing is very easy to do and hard to trace,” explains Ciaran Martin, former head of the National Cyber Security Centre. “The real solution is awareness — people need to understand that serious businesses don’t ask for money by text.”

The government has announced new measures, including a ban on SIM farms expected to come into force next year. Once active, owning or supplying such equipment without a legitimate reason will become illegal.

Protecting Yourself

Police advice remains straightforward:

• Don’t click links in unsolicited messages.
• Report suspected fraud to Action Fraud and your bank.
• Forward suspicious texts to 7726 to help mobile networks investigate.

Back inside the evidence room, the designer goods continue to pile up – a reminder of just how much money scammers are making, and how urgently authorities are trying to keep up.

For Curtis and his team, every stiletto and handbag represents something else too: a victim who never saw the danger coming.