In November 2025, a cybersecurity partner quietly alerted Toronto police to an unusual occurrence on the streets of Canada’s largest city: a suspected rogue device operating in downtown Toronto, mimicking a legitimate cell tower and pushing fraudulent text messages to anyone nearby.
By the time search warrants were executed in Markham and Hamilton last month, investigators had documented tens of thousands of mobile devices connecting to an SMS blaster, along with more than 13 million network disruptions.
On April 23, Toronto police announced the arrests of three men, aged 21 to 27, on 44 combined charges, including fraud and mischief. They called it Project Lighthouse, the first investigation of its kind in Canada….