SIM card international cyber fraud mastermind arrested from Uttarakhand's Manglaur

Dehradun, Sep 30 (PTI) Busting a gang of international cyber frauds sending fake SIM cards to criminals in south east Asian countries, Uttarakhand police and the Home Ministry on Monday arrested the mastermind of the racket from Manglaur in Haridwar district.

Sohil (fictitious name), who was running the cartel for around a year, was arrested from Manglaur police station area in Haridwar district on Monday, IG (Law and Order) Nilesh Anand Bharne said at a press conference here.

The accused has activated more than 20,000 SIM cards so far and provided them to cyber thugs in various states across the country as well as south east Asian countries like China, Thailand, Cambodia, Myanmar, Vietnam and Malaysia, he said.

Bharne said 1,816 SIM cards, two cheque books, five mobile phones and two biometric devices were recovered from the possession of the accused.

The accused went from house to house in Manglaur area and lured many women with fake government schemes or gift hampers of cups or tea sets from the company. He also took their Aadhar cards, documents and thumb impression on a biometric machine and activated thousands of SIM cards fraudulently, the senior police officer said.

The SIM cards obtained fraudulently by the arrested mastermind were being sold to cyber thugs at the rate of Rs 3 to Rs 50 per OTP through 'WhatsApp OTP groups' operated from China and Cambodia.

Through these WhatsApp OTP groups operated from China and Cambodia, cyber frauds sitting in far off countries activated WhatsApp and other applications on these Indian SIMs and made WhatsApp calls to people all over the country, luring them to earn quick profits in a short time through online trading and investments.

Men and women across the country were thus defrauded of more than Rs 1 crore, he said.

The cyber frauds initially made the customers start with small investments and paid them the profits to earn their trust. Once they fell into their trap they made them invest big amounts under some pretext or the other and defrauding them of crores of rupees, Bharne said.

Cyber criminals lure people who do not know much about cyber crime into a trap by giving information about online trading/ investment through posts/ advertisements on social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp and tempt them to earn more profit in a short time.

Even the amount of profit is given in small investment in the beginning. After this, they are connected to a fake website for investment through a link in which the amount invested in fake accounts/ dashboards made in their name is shown along with the profit. This assures the victim of more profit and by luring them to make more and more investments and earn profit, fraud of lakhs to crores of rupees is carried out, Bharne said.

The criminals receive the money obtained by fraud in various bank accounts and transfer the amount to other accounts and get profit in the form of commission.

During interrogation, the accused said he has obtained SIM cards by cheating many women of his town by luring them with fake government schemes or by giving them tea sets or cups on behalf of the company and by obtaining their Aadhar card and other documents and biometrics in a fake manner on the IDs of those women with these SIM cards.

The case was investigated by Inspector Vikas Bhardwaj, who was assisted by STF Inspector N K Bhatt and his team under the supervision of Additional SP Chandramohan Singh and Deputy Superintendent of Police R V Chamola.

Deputy SP Ankush Mishra coordinated with I4C, Ministry of Home Affairs to analyse the mobile numbers and received several criminal complaints from across India. PTI ALM ALM KSS KSS