Pre-Activated SIM Card Racket In Odisha: Anubhav Mohanty Alerts About ‘WhatsApp Message’ From Om Birla

Bhubaneswar: A day after Odisha Crime Branch took the three arrested in the pre-activated SIM card racket on five-day remand, actor-turned-politician Anubhav Mohanty on Thursday tweeted about receiving a WhatsApp message from a number with the profile picture of Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla.

Tagging the Cyber Complaint Cell, he wrote: “I request @Cybercellindia for immediate actions. Such fraudulent calls, messages & people behind these have to be dealt with sterner hands (sic).”

Notably, the CB had earlier informed that the arrested cybercriminals used the photograph of the Lok Sabha Speaker to create a WhatsApp account using a BSNL mobile number and had been cheating people by asking them for money.

Delhi Police had initially flagged the number and alerted the CB, which found the number being used on three different mobile phones in Talabarkot village in Dhenkanal district. SIM cards of other service providers were also being used similarly.

After an extensive investigation, the cybercops arrested Dushmant Sahu, Sai Prakash Das and Avinash Nayak and seized 19,641 SIM cards, Rs 14 lakh cash, 48 mobile phones, fingerprinting scanner, credit cards, bank passbooks, a laptop, 440 passport size photographs, 394 voter ID cards, five Aadhaar cards, 11 QR code boards and 108 customer application forms from their possession.

While Dushmant was the mastermind, Sai Prakash and Avinash were jointly running a shop dealing with pre-activated SIM cards and other accessories of cellphones. Dushmanat had joined a group “Buyer Seller of OTP” through Facebook. He received pre-activated SIMs of BSNL, Jio, Vodafone and Airtel from Das and Nayak and shared those in the group. He charged Rs 400 per SIM and OTP.

The CB has also issued notices to BSNL’s and Jio’s Dhenkanal heads and Vodafone’s Commercial Manager in Bhubaneswar for questioning in connection with the alleged distribution of pre-activated SIM cards.

During the investigation, two Paytm accounts linked to Sahu with Rs 30 lakh allegedly linked to the racket were also found.