The Odisha Police on Thursday busted a racket dealing in pre-activated fake SIM cards and arrested four persons involved in selling the cards to cybercriminals across India.
An official said that the Cyber Police Station, Keonjhar, unearthed the SIM card racket. The miscreants had activated over 4,000 SIM cards in Odisha and sold them off to Cybercriminals in other states across India. The arrested persons were identified as Rajkishore Jena, Tapan Kumar Jena, Subrat Kumar Jena and Pradeep Kumar Mishra. They all have been taken into custody. Steps are being taken to deactivate all these SIM cards, police said.
During the investigation, the police learnt that the miscreants posed themselves as POS (Point of Sale) agents of Airtel and Jio and activated SIM cards in the names of people belonging to Keonjhar district. They used to later sell these cards to cybercriminals pan-India, including Jharkhand, Bihar, and Rajasthan.
Cybercriminals utilised these activated SIM cards to dupe victims across India of crores of rupees.
As per an FIR, cybercriminals called up an individual in Maharashtra posing as representatives from a reputed bank and promised an interest-free loan. In another such case, a victim from Telangana was duped by callers who claimed to represent an electric bike company and offered a discount on purchasing an e-bike.
During the investigation, the police learnt that over 300 FIRs were linked to mobile numbers activated by the accused persons. Incriminating articles, including 538 SIM cards, 18 mobile phones, 5 biometric scanners, bank passbooks, ATM cards, and identity cards were seized from the arrested persons.
In an advisory, the Odisha Police has appealed to people to remain vigilant and not to send money to unknown UPI IDs or bank accounts. Victims of such cyber frauds should immediately call the Cyber Crime Helpline 1930. The Odisha Police is also running a cyber awareness campaign under the handle @cybercopodisha on various social media.