Sam Cooper/The Bureau: The Toronto arrests fit a pattern that has unfolded across at least a dozen jurisdictions in the past 18 months, from Bangkok to Belgrade, from Jakarta to the London Underground.
In every substantiated case, the operational signature is nearly identical. Vehicles carry concealed false base stations. Low-level operators — Thai nationals, Chinese students, local hires — drive pre-assigned routes through dense urban areas, broadcasting smishing messages that impersonate banks, government agencies, couriers, and telecom providers. Victims who click are directed to fake websites engineered to harvest banking credentials and one-time passcodes. Accounts, police have said in multiple cases, are drained within minutes…