LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- Scam texts are flooding our phones and costing some dearly.

According to the Federal Trade Commission, the texts scammed Americans out of nearly half a billion dollars last year alone.

So where are all those texts coming from? It turns out, millions may be coming from Southern California.

Been Coon with the cyber security firm Unit221B tracks fraudster activity on the dark web. He's also tracking what are described as "SIM farms."

SIM farms contain dozens of SIM boxes, which in turn contain dozens of SIM cards. Your cell phone has a single SIM card that allows you to call and text.

The farms can have thousands of them.

"I could logically put together in my head the ability to send out millions of text messages in a few minutes, depending on how big the fa

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