Delhi Police Arrests Man From Bihar For Selling SIM Cards To International Cyber Criminals
Delhi Police on Saturday claimed to have arrested a man from Bihar for allegedly selling sim cards to international cyber frauds, officials said.
Police recovered 5,000 SIM cards and 25 mobile phones from Anuj Kumar’s possession. Kumar was arrested from Gaya in Bihar for supplying SIM cards to people in countries including China, Cambodia, and other South Asian nations.
Deputy Commissioner of Police (southeast) Ravi Kumar Singh said a complaint was registered by the CA of a company saying that he was defrauded of ₹ 20 lakh by a person impersonating himself as one of the directors of the company.
Sensing the gravity of the offence, a dedicated team of cyber police station of the southeast district was formed. Through a detailed analysis of mobile numbers and technical surveillance, Anuj was arrested.
These SIM cards were used in various cyber fraud schemes, including digital arrest, investment fraud and financial scams. During interrogation it was found that Anuj was a mastermind of the network and is a registered SIM vendor and retailer of Airtel SIM Cards, police said in a statement.
Anuj had been leveraging Gaya’s status as a major tourist hub for South Asian travellers to orchestrate his operations. “Exploiting the high influx of international tourists, particularly from South Asia, the accused set up a distribution network for illegally procured SIM cards,” Singh said.
SIM registration processes to procure cards in bulk by organising SIM vending camps in rural areas and used to issue four to five SIM cards on a single identity, the officer said. These SIMs were trafficked internationally through Gaya and Nepal to tourists, enabling anonymous and untraceable communications for cyber fraud operations, he added.
This sophisticated network provided a steady supply of untraceable SIM cards to cybercriminals operating across borders, police said. The police statement said Anuj has to date supplied more than 1000 illegal SIM cards outside India. There were 3400 SIM cards of Airtel and the rest SIM cards of Vodafone were recovered, the police added.
Further investigation is underway, they said.