Massive SIM card racket busted in Mumbai

Mumbai: In a major operation, the city police today claimed to have busted a massive SIM card racket, with the arrest of a man from south Mumbai and seized over 4,900 cards of various telecom companies, some of which were procured using fake documents and activated. Acting on a tip-off, cops of Crime Branch (control) as well as Dongri police station raided a house in Madeel Sayad Manzil building yesterday and found loads of SIM cards. [caption id=“attachment_180452” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“With Turk’s arrest, it appears that companies are not verifying address of the customers before the activation of cards. Representational image Reuters”]  [/caption] “The SIM cards of top companies such as Airtel, Idea, Uninor, Cheers, Vodafone, Loop, Reliance and demo cards of Idea were found in the house. A total of 4,931 SIM cards, one laptop, four mobile phones and Rs 36,000 in cash were recovered from the possession of the accused Mohammed Aseem Razaak Turk (24),” Rakesh Sharma, senior inspector at Crime Branch (Control) told reporters. The accused was arrested today and produced before a local court which remanded him in police custody till 16 January. Turk, who rented the house, and his aides, who are still at large, have been booked under section 465 (punishment for forgery), 467 (forgery of valuable security, will), 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating), 469 (forgery for purpose of harming reputation), 471 (using as genuine a forged document or electronic record) and 420 (cheating), he said. Of the 4,900 SIM cards recovered, 2,100 belonged to Idea, he added. The accused, who has a criminal background and earlier worked for a mobile SIM card dealer, was arrested in forgery case early this month by Tardeo police and was out on bail, police said. “Some of the SIM cards were activated after submitting fake documents. For activation of the rest of the cards, the accused would have employed similar modus operandi,” Sharma said. With Turk’s arrest, it appears that companies are not verifying address of the customers before the activation of cards, Sharma said adding, “we will see in which direction the probe goes. We will go deep in the case and catch all those responsible for it. Such SIM cards may fall in the hands of anti-social elements who may use them for all wrong reasons, resulting in big crimes.” PTI