MANILA, Philippines – The National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) on Tuesday raided the office of a company which sells devices used for “text blasts” or “text spams”.

NBI agents recovered the illegal GSM devices and copies of software at a building in San Juan City.

“They are actually selling equipment and apparatus which are being used for purposes of conducting text blasts,” said Palmer Mallari, chief of the NBI Technical Investigation Division.

The NBI said anyone using these devices can send a single message which can be received by millions of cellphone users.

The GSM devices were not registered with the National Telecommunications Commission.

The owner and the staff of the company which owns the GSM devices were invited for questioning.

Authorities suspect that the company's clients include politicians and political parties, who send their propaganda via text blast.

The company's equipment and software may have also been used by advertisers.

The raid was in response to the complaint filed by telecommunications company Globe Telecoms at the NBI.

Authorities believe the illegal devices were also used to send spam messages, bogus raffle notifications and solicitations.

“Millions of messages in one sending, naka-queue na yan dere-deretso.,” said Globe Telecom security director Ronald Uytuchin. “Magpapadala sila ng mga messages saying na nanalo ka ng various promos coming from different organizations.”

Authorities warned the public not to heed promotional announcements coming from an 11 digit number. They said legitimate promos or subscriber advisories from telcos usually come from 3 or 4 digit numbers. – report from Maan Macapagal, ABS-CBN News; ANC