In an effort to contain the growing cybercrimes, the city police in the last month have permanently blocked over 15,000 SIM cards used by cyber crooks.
The city police commissioner B. Dayananda said that the government portal launched recently to track down SIM cards used in cyber crimes has come in handy in blocking these SIM cards successfully.
These SIM cards are used to call multiple people randomly and cheat them. Fraudsters have availed these connections through fake identity documents and loopholes in the Know Your Customer (KYC) form. Police have identified these loopholes and are trying to resolve these issues to minimise offences.
“Most of these SIM cards were found to be operational in the northern and other parts of India and were used to target gullible people in the State. Blocking these SIM cards will help reduce the number of victims, and it also brings down the number of cybercrimes. It’s an ongoing drive and as and when we identify such suspicious numbers, we will get these SIM cards blocked,” Mr. Dayananda said.
However, officials fighting cybercrimes said that blocking SIM cards and freezing their accounts was just a temporary measure. The accused use fake and forged identity documents, so they will buy new SIM cards anyway, an official said. The accused even use bank accounts borrowed on a rental basis from gullible people, to carry out fraudulent transactions. Once the money reaches the account, it will immediately be withdrawn or diverted to many accounts to hoodwink the tracking process.
