If only it was so easy as running a trace on the criminal and then driving down to their location to arrest them, just like the movies.
The people running these scams are several layers removed from the people sending the texts. The big ones are careful to do some or all of it from another country. It's not as simple as tracing a number and then arresting someone.
The crackdown in the linked article involves 34 different countries. Just imagine the global police coordination required to trace that all and pull it off.
My brother recently had success in having small town cops go to a person's house to retrieve his lost+found IPhone, even. I was sure they'd tell him to sod off as a civil matter, but they retrieved it and even drove it to his house a solid 20 minutes away.
If it happens when nobody is home thus nobody is hurt, they will most like dust for prints and you will have to clean their mess as well.
They got more important things than "they stole my laptop and €500 cash". If the thieves steal amounts/treasures that are terror-funding-amounts, and/or they physically hurt someone, then they will most likely find them (someone will snitch on them as police applies pressure to they-know-who-most-likely-did-it).
I remember 20(?) years ago in the UK someone broke into an old man's home, beat him severely, and stole his (olympic game) medal(s). The thieve(s) were then severely beaten up by fellow criminals and handed to the police. I cannot remember details, and asked ChatGTP but couldn't find more information (but I swear it was a case like that).
I also know enough police officers that will tell you to your face that for petty crime without physical harm they will never go after the perps. Unless they catch them for something bigger, and by running their prints they discover/can pin on them more stuff.
A guy who sent 17 million messages to Australian numbers lives 12kms from me and was only arrested last week.
Even if he's used false identities, it literally is "drive down the street to where these texts are coming from"
Cell triangulation is incredibly easy and accurate, especially when the average phone is pinging dozens of towers in cities with timing advances like mine is now.
You're not wrong about the bureaucracy involved in getting this done but the fact a few guys making videos for fun can make a living off doing this exact kind of thing as content suggests to me that well-resourced law enforcement should be able to do much more.
YouTubers make entertaining videos, not criminal cases.
It takes more than some YouTube-level detective work to put together a case with proper evidence gathering and to coordinate across countries.
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/kolkata/police-bust...
Police are overworked and have low case closure rates. If their incentives align with the case+evidence, a “YouTuber” (or any other non-expert investor), the additional steps to build a legal case can move pretty quick.
YouTube has notably different due process protections, rules of evidence, and standards of proof than criminal law in reasonable systems of government, however.
This is how you resolve these sorts of issues.
There's Youtubers that find call centers, hack into their network, watch them on their camera systems and mess with them[0]... surely the authorities could do more
0. https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=hacked+call+cen...
And that's when police actually care about catching the person.
Not at all true in many places. It is very easy in the states to get a phone number with cash.
Here's a whole guide: https://lifehacker.com/how-to-buy-a-burner-phone-1843905326