Mumbai Crime: SIM card racket busted, 13 held

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The Mumbai Police have busted a racket where SIM cards were being activated using bogus documents. While most of the arrested accused are SIM card salespersons who earned commissions on each sale, the police have also arrested a call centre owner who bought the fraudulently activated SIM cards in bulk for his business.

According to police officials, the Department of Telecommunication (DoT) alerted cellular service providers about around 8,000 SIM card owners, whose documents were suspicious. The DOT found that numerous customer profiles had different Aadhar details but the same picture. The service provider companies, after their own investigations, found that some of their Point of Sale (POS) retailers had uploaded bogus documents in the system while selling and activating SIM cards. Based on this information, the police, from May 9, started conducting raids in various locations in Mumbai.

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The police have recovered a total of 2,197 SIM cards, 60 mobile phones and four laptops and arrested 13 accused, Bangur Nagar, Sahar, DB Marg, VP Road and Malabar Hill. "One of the accused, a call centre owner, was required to use commercial SIM cards, which attract a higher tariff, but used these SIM cards instead. Another accused, a retailer, created as many as 684 bogus customer profiles using his own picture in different get-ups" said a senior officer with the Mumbai Police. The accused have been charged with cheating and forgery under the Indian Penal Code.