Fake SIM cards racket busted

The Crime Branch of the Mumbai Police on Friday busted a major racket with possible national security implications" in which documents furnished by genuine customers seeking SIM cards were allegedly copied by the accused,and were then used to fraudulently obtain hundreds of SIM cards on the same name of the customer.

The Crime Branch of the Mumbai Police on Friday busted a major racket with possible national security implications” in which documents furnished by genuine customers seeking SIM cards were allegedly copied by the accused,and were then used to fraudulently obtain hundreds of SIM cards on the same name of the customer. These SIM cards were then activated and sold at a higher price to people without documentation or identity proofs involved,the police said.

The police have arrested nine persons,and seized 379 activated SIM cards of three service providers and 550 documents from them. One of those arrested,Aslam Shaikh (33),is an Area Territory Manager in a leading service provider,whose alleged role was to activate the SIM cards issued in bulk.

Unit 7 of the Crime Branch has busted a racket in which SIM cards were obtained in bulk using documents that are genuine,but the cards were not given to the applicant but sold to others. When a genuine customer applied for a SIM card by furnishing documents,his documents were replicated by salespersons of the distributors of service providers and their associates. These documents were then used to get SIM cards issued on the customer’s name without his knowledge,which were sold at a higher price to others without any documents involved, said Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime) Himanshu Roy.

This racket has national security implications,as these cards may be used by gangsters and terrorists. The obvious question to ask is how the service provider did not detect in its system that of cards were being issued on the same name and address, he added.

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