Google filed a lawsuit on June 12, 2026, against a Chinese cybercrime network called Outsider Enterprise for conducting a massive AI-powered scam campaign targeting Android users in the US and globally [1, 2, 3, 4].
The group sent about 2.5 million scam text messages over a two-week period in May 2026, with Android users flagging 55,000 of those texts as spam, equating to more than two spam complaints per minute, according to Google [5, 1, 2, 3, 4]. The fraudulent messages typically claimed account issues or package delivery problems, luring victims to fake websites designed to steal personal and financial data [5, 3].
Outsider Enterprise operated a phishing-as-a-service model through Telegram, selling scam software and templates for $88 per week or $200 monthly. Their platform used Google's Gemini AI to create 9,000 fake websites and 1 million fraudulent URLs that impersonated Google, YouTube, and US government agencies including New York’s E-ZPass and the US Postal Service [5, 2, 3, 4].
The FBI states that since July 2023, the group’s operations led to the theft of an estimated 3.87 million credit cards and losses of approximately $1.9 billion, while Google estimates victims number in the hundreds of thousands with losses in the millions [1, 2, 4]. FBI Assistant Director Brett Leatherman said, "Criminals increasingly use AI to make fraud like this more convincing and harder to detect. And we need a permanent solution to bring them to justice." [4]
Google worked closely with US telecom carriers AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile to block the scam texts and is coordinating with US law enforcement including the FBI, which has seized domains and Shopify storefronts linked to Outsider Enterprise [5, 1, 2, 3, 4]. Google General Counsel DeLaine Prado said, "This is our first coordinated effort and lawsuit and that speaks to the breadth of impact that this particular scam has." [4]
Google uses AI tools to detect and block more than 10 billion scam messages monthly, including activity tied to this group [5, 1, 2]. Congressman Brian Fitzpatrick described the threat as "organized transnational crime moving through our phones, and it demands a response as coordinated and aggressive as the threat itself." [4]
Google is also supporting bipartisan bills like the National Strategy for Combatting Scams Act and STOP Scams Against Seniors Act to target AI-driven scams through legislation [4].
