Odisha police bust another pre-activated SIM card racket; 8 held

Bhubaneswar, June 10 (IANS) The cyber police in Cuttack have busted a pre-activated SIM card racket and arrested eight members of the gang on Saturday, a police officer said.

Over 800 SIM cards, including 300 pre-activated SIMs, have been seized from the eight accused, of which seven are employees of a private telecom company, the police said.

Briefing mediapersons, Cuttack DCP Pinak Mishra said that while investigating a cyber fraud case, it was found that the SIM used in the fraud was activated in Odisha and cyber scamsters from Rajasthan and Western Uttar Pradesh were involved in the fraud.

The cyber criminals are yet to be traced, as several technical aspects are pending, he said.

However, during the investigation, a pre-activated SIM gang was found involved in the crime, who sold the SIM to the scamsters, Mishra said.

The accused had come in contact with a fraudster from outside the state and learnt the tricks to activate SIM cards by becoming vendors and misusing the identity of the consumers, he said.

The accused hail from Puri district and the police have seized 16 mobile phones and Rs 2,600 from their possession, the DCP said.

The DCP added that the gang was in contact with professional fraudsters outside the state and used to hand over the pre-activated SIM cards to them.

Recently, the Special Task Force (STF) of Odisha police had arrested four cyber criminals for sharing OTPs of pre-activated SIMs to some criminals and suspected Pakistani agents.

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