Mumbai: In the SIM card scam unearthed by the Sahar police in which four people were arrested on Friday, nine other arrests, including that of the mastermind, were made on Saturday. The Free Press Journal broke the news first on May 13 about the scam wherein as many as 8,500 SIM cards were issued in the name of 62 people by using fake documents to commit cybercrimes. In the raids leading to the arrests, the police seized 2,197 SIM cards, four laptops, 60 mobiles and two demo cards.
Joint Commissioner of Police (law and order) Satyanarayan Chaudhary said the scam was first detected by the Department of Telecom (DoT) when it entered data of four crore Mumbai SIM cards into its system to find out who all are using more than 50 cards. The system threw up 62 names using 8,500 SIM cards. The police then registered separate cases in five police stations. Most of those arrested are small-time mobile vendors and the mastermind, Abdul Hakeem Mansoori, issued 685 SIM cards by using his own photo.
Police trying to acsertain network
The police are trying to ascertain in which other states and districts these SIM cards are being used and expect bigger revelations in the coming days.
A police officer said one of the arrested accused sold 60 SIM cards with his own photo taken from different angles. Chaudhary said though biometrics have to be provided to get a SIM card, the process stopped during the pandemic when small-time vendors started selling them for Rs500 to Rs600 on the basis of fake documents. Chaudhary said these were largely bought by criminals to commit cyber frauds.
During the probe, the police also found out that one accused gave a few SIM cards to a fraudulent call centre operating from Mira Road. When the centre was raided, 52 cards SIMs were seized.
Total SIM cards 8,500
Names registered 62
Key accused Abdul Hakeem Mansoori issued 685 SIMs in his name
VP Road police arrested one accused, seized 378 SIM cards
DB Marg police arrested two people and seized 339 SIM cards
Malabar Hill police arrested one person and seized 684 SIM cards
Sahar police arrested four and seized 469 cards
Bangru Nagar police arrested five persons and seized 327 cards
