[writeslowly]

This seems like a lot of work for one (or two, once it got to China) people repeatedly trying to get into the phone. I wonder if this is like debt collection agencies where the stolen phones get repeatedly fenced at a steadily decreasing value, and each new owner has a go at sending out these unlock copypastes until it's clear that it's only value is in being scrapped.

[AndroTux]

Doesn't seem like a lot of work to me. Sending out that message takes a few minutes, and I would assume that most people would simply cave in and delete it. It's gone anyways, so they don't really lose much, and being threatened does things to people.

[writeslowly]

It stood out to me that after the initial text, they followed up two weeks later, and then once per day after that over a few days from different numbers. I would have expected to see someone send out a few threatening messages on one day and then move on to the next stolen phone when it was clear they weren't getting anything.

[uptown]

Yeah but flying Miami back to the US to murder their whole family does seem like a lot of effort.

[m463]

take a picture of the message, OCR it, and it can be automated. threats as a service, in language of choice.

[j-bos]

Doesn't seem too much, some people write hundreds of comments/tweets per day with no expectation of pay.