Sydney man jailed for SMS phishing scam

A man charged with scamming customers of Telstra, CBA and NAB has been jailed for two years and eight months.

The Australian Federal Police said the SMS phishing scam targeted 450 victims and netted the 40-year-old Sydney man more than $100,000.

On Friday last week, the Sydney Local Court found him guilty of “producing, supplying or obtaining data with intent to commit a computer offence”, as well as attempting to gain benefit by deception; obtaining benefit by deception; and unauthorised access, modification or impairment [of data].

The AFP said it began its investigation in 2020 after becoming aware of suspicious website registrations.

“The man used these web pages to lure Australian victims to enter their personal information, which he would subsequently use to access their telephone accounts, bank accounts and create new accounts without their knowledge," the AFP said.

His scam was successful on at least 39 victims who lost more than $100,000 in total, police said.

The two banks and Telstra worked with the AFP to “identify victims who had entered information into these phony web pages”, the force added.

That allowed the three companies to provide additional security to those account holders.

This, the AFP said, helped prevent funds being stolen from another 16,147 customers.

The man was arrested in a joint AFP-NSW Police Cybercrime Squad operation on November 24 2021.