KOLKATA: Cops have recovered over 4,700 pre-activated SIM cards since February from various cyber crooks who have been arrested across the country. Interestingly, most of these SIM cards were activated in Kolkata and its adjoining areas.
Cops seized over 2,000 pre-activated SIM cards from six men who have links with Jamtara gangs. Two of the accused — Alok Das and Ranajit Chakraborty — were arrested from Sonarpur on Monday night. Earlier, the Parnasree Police and Sarsuna police had seized over 2,700 such pre-activated SIM cards between February and April.
These SIM cards are used by the accused to not generate fraud calls but also to open wallets where the defrauded money can be kept and distributed quickly.
“This creates a web to confuse investigators. By the time we reach the final source, the money is already withdrawn at ATMs from mule account where the wallet money is finally transferred, or through gift cards or even by payment of utilities. The SIM cards act as mules, making it difficult for cops to reach out to the accused as a maze is created with hundreds of transactions,” said a detective department officer.
Cops said those, who deal with such pre-activated cards, follow a unique modus operandi of “lending” them to fraudsters. “In the Parnasree case, the accused with access to SIM cards used social media like WhatsApp and Telegram to communicate with the actual cyber fraudsters in Bihar and Odisha. These fraudsters used these SIM cards to open new wallets. They would generate OTPs and “lend them” out over Telegram to the Jamtara crooks. If the wallet was used for a short period, a small amount got charged by the pre-activated SIM holders. If the money had to be parked for a longer period, the charges differed and would cost much more,” said an officer.
According to police sources, while activating the SIM cards of customers, these fraudsters would take their photographs, claiming that their previous picture was not good. Later, they would use the photographs to activate a different SIM card. “Thus, they activated multiple SIM cards by using the customers’ details without their knowledge,” the officer added.
