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The aim of the texts was really to ‘plunder’ the victims’ bank accounts, Inner London Crown Court was told.
The court heard it was difficult to quantify how much money the fraudsters had gained specifically from the texting scheme, but that ‘top boss’ Zhijia Fan, 48, had personally benefited more than £100,000.
His co-defendants Daoyan Shang, 20, Wan Hafiz, 41, and Gatis Lauks, 25, were thought to have received smaller sums, but Lauks had laundered around £600,000 by purchasing gift cards with stolen bank details, prosecutor Alex Davidson said.
Lauks was paid five per cent commission for the gift cards he loaded and believed he personally made about £30,000 from the texting scheme, the hearing was told.
After giving a ‘no comment’ interview to police in May 2025, Lauks returned five days later and confessed to his role in the racket.
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Zhijia Fan, 48, was known as the ‘top boss’ of the text messaging scam, and was court with a ‘SMS blaster’ on the Underground+
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Wan Hafiz, 41 (left) and Daoyan Shang, 20 (right) have both been jailed for their parts in the racketTRENDING
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The 25-year-old revealed he had been recruited in June or July of 2024 to purchase gift cards using stolen bank account details under Fan, who became ‘his handler’, Mr Davidson said.Lauks had explained a ‘lady in China’ was able to provide him with ‘real-time remote technical support’, and said he would use an app on his phone loaded with stolen bank details to make in-store purchases.
The defendant said he could purchase 100 gift cards in a day and, on one occasion, had bought £8,000 worth of gift cards from a UK store, the court heard.
The group used the gift cards to purchase items including clothes, Pokémon cards, Louis Vuitton goods and video games, Mr Davidson said.
Fan, of Winchester Street in Acton, had asked Lauks to also wheel around an SMS blaster in a suitcase, but issues with the device’s battery meant this did not happen, the court heard.
Lauks was also dispatched to France to assess the ‘feasibility’ of conducting the same scam on the Paris Metro.
This idea was dismissed, however, as the system was assessed as not having ‘the same vulnerabilities as could be exploited by the crime group in England’, Mr Davidson said.
Police said an investigation was launched on March 11, 2025, when an off-duty British Transport Police (BTP) detective spotted a man with a suspicious suitcase, that bore a number of holes and emitted a green flash, sitting at a platform at King’s Cross Underground station.
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The group was busted after an off-duty British Transport Police officer noticed two of them wheeling around suspicious-looking luggageOfficers searching Fan, Shang and Hafiz’s London addresses seized 10,832 gift cards loaded with more than £80,000 in profits generated from fraud, BTP said.
Shang and Fan had previously been on trial at Inner London Crown Court, and both changed their pleas to guilty on a charge of conspiracy to defraud between January and March 2025.
On Tuesday, both defendants were jailed, with Fan sentenced to four years and eight months and Shang, of Caxton Road, Shepherd’s Bush, to two years and 10 months.
At the same hearing, Hafiz, of Queensway in Paddington, was jailed for 14 months for conspiracy to defraud and 10 weeks for possession of articles for use in fraud, with both sentences to run concurrently.
Recorder Alex Stein told Hafiz he would also be subject to deportation proceedings as he is not a British national.
Lauks, of Ealing, west London, previously pleaded guilty to a charge of fraud by false representation and was sentenced to two years, suspended for two years.
Sentencing the four men, the judge said the scheme was an ‘extremely sophisticated fraud’ in which all of the defendants had been ‘knowing participants’.
He said ‘tens of thousands’ of ‘smishing’ messages had been sent and although not all of these been responded to, ‘each one represents either an attempted offence or a completed offence’.
The term ‘smishing’, a combination of ‘SMS’ and ‘phishing’, sees fraudsters convince victims to reveal personal information by making them think they are from a reputable company.
Another suspect, Jinhua Zhang, 58, is on the run, having fled when he was released on bail, the court heard.
Speaking after the sentencing, Detective Inspector Tim Weekes of the BTP said: ‘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.’
Jonathan Kelleher from the Crown Prosecution Service said: ‘This was a sophisticated fraud led by Zhijia Fan to get London Underground passengers to disclose personal details which the gang would then use to access and most certainly empty their bank accounts.
‘While Fan maintained a physical distance, Daoyan Shang would accompany the SMS blasters, a portable and an illegal device used to impersonate a legitimate cellular tower and forcing nearby mobile phones to connect, onto the Underground and provide technical support in case they malfunctioned.
‘Hafiz was shown by Shang how to deploy the devices.
‘This case shows the effective and collaborative work of the British Transport Police and the Crown Prosecution Service.
‘The CPS will now seek to recover their proceeds of crime to ensure these offenders do not benefit from their criminal conduct.
‘If you feel you have been a victim of a fraudulent attack, please report this to the police and we will always look to prosecute cases whenever there is the evidence to do so.’
Share or comment on this article: Fraudster involved in text message scam targeting Tube passengers ‘laundered £600,000 through gift cards’, court hears
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Comfortablynumb, Thelandthattimeforgot, United Kingdom, 5 minutes ago
As each day passes I appreciate more the distrust our forefathers had for foreigners and certain types. We are literally allowing our riches to be plundered by our naivity.
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Mr. Jinks, London, United Kingdom, 23 minutes ago
Khan’s Lawless Labour London.
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peeved off, Northlands, Iceland, 31 minutes ago
Deport, deport, deport FFS.
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