Pre-Activated SIM Card Racket In Odisha: LS Speaker Om Birla’s Pic Used In Fake WhatsApp Account

Bhubaneswar: A day after the arrest of three cybercriminals allegedly involved in fraudulent financial activities by opening fake accounts and wallets in several online shopping and gaming apps, the Crime Branch (CB) on Monday revealed that the accused had used the photograph of Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla to create a WhatsApp account using a BSNL mobile number and were cheating people by asking them money.

Delhi Police had initially flagged the number and alerted Odisha CB, which found that the number was used consecutively in three different mobiles in Talabarkot village in Dhenkanal district. The same activities were also going on in the area with SIM cards of other service providers.

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 cell phones. Dushmanat had joined a group “Buyer Seller of OTP” through Facebook. He received pre-activated SIMs of BSNL, JIO, Vodafone, Airtel from Das and Nayak and shared these in the group. He charged Rs 400 per SIM and OTP, the CB had informed earlier.

All the three have been booked under several sections of the IPC and IT Act. The CB will seek remand of the arrested to unearth other details regarding the whole gang, sources said.