Bhubaneswar: The Twin City Commissionerate Police on Tuesday arrested seven persons, who were allegedly supplying pre-activated SIM cards to criminal gangs. They acquired these by providing fraudulent identity documents, DGP Abhay said.
He said that the racket was unearthed while investigating a case registered by Saheed Nagar police.
“A SIM card helps police identify the user and in crime detection. This gang used credentials of other persons to obtain ready-to-use SIM cards under fake names and was providing these to the criminals,” he said.
Police have seized 17,000 SIM cards and 110 mobile handsets from their possession.
“Five among those arrested used to sell SIM cards and the remaining two are employees of a private telecom service,” the DGP added.
Commissioner of Police Soumendra Priyadarshi said that these pre-activated SIM cards were used for various cybercrimes. “While investigating a case, we learnt that such a racket is operating out of Bhadrak. A bulk of the SIM cards were sent to other states,” he said.
Since distributors are under pressure to sell more SIM cards, the gang exploited the situation and activated multiple SIM cards by using one credential, he said.
Further investigation is on to ascertain the involvement of others in this racket, he added.
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