Odisha crime branch unearths SIM box racket, 6 held

Acting on a tip-off by the department of telecommunications, Odisha Crime Branch sleuths raided various places at Betanati and Baripada and nabbed all the accused.

Bhubaneswar:The cyber police station of the Odisha Crime Branch on Tuesday unearthed a SIM box racket operating from Bhandagaon in Khunta tehsil of Mayurbhanj district in Odisha and arrested six men of an inter-state gang. Among the arrested, Vishal Khandelwal is said to be the mastermind of the gang. The other accused were identified as Tapas Kumar Patra, Nigam Patra, Sudhansu Das, Aju Patra, and Ajay Kumar Patra.

Acting on a tip-off by the department of telecommunications, Odisha Crime Branch sleuths raided various places at Betanati and Baripada and nabbed all the accused. Initially, one accused was apprehended, and based on his inputs other accused were also nabbed. A large number of pre-activated SIM cards and other equipment have been recovered from the accused.

Reportedly, the department of telecommunications, ministry of communications, and GoI lodged a complaint with the cyber police on September 12 alleging that a large number of SIMs are being used in SIM boxes to defraud people in various parts of the country. A huge number of KYC-related fraud messages were generated from these SIM boxes and sent to people for the purpose of cheating. The gang members are operating in Odisha and Bihar.

Earlier in July 2017, Odisha police had busted a similar racket in Berhampur and arrested four persons. It has been revealed that mastermind Vishal had procured a SIM box and engaged Tapas for sending messages by using pre-activated SIMs supplied by Sudhansu and Nigam. They were circulating hundreds of fake messages every day. After a few months, Tapas engaged Aju and Ajay in this crime.

A SIM box is a device that can house more than hundreds of SIM cards and be controlled via a computer. SIM box fraud is among the most demanding challenges telecom operations face globally. A SIM box fraud diverts international calls to a cellular device through the internet. The device routes the connections back into the network as local calls, using hundreds of low-cost or even unpaid SIM cards, which are often obtained with forged identities.