Cops bust SIM card racket, 1 held

4,931 CARDS SEIZED

S Ahmed Ali & Mateen Hafeez TNN

Mumbai: The Crime Branch (CB) Control Unit and the Dongri police have busted a racket where cellphone SIM cards were issued on forged papers. Police suspect the involvement of service providers.

A former SIM card dealer, Mohammed Asim Razzaque Turk (24), was arrested and 4,931 SIM cards, a laptop, four mobile phones and Rs 36,000 cash were seized. Turk has been booked for forgery and breach of trust. Cops are likely to invoke other sections after obtaining technical evidence.

Police inspector Rakesh Sharma and his team raided Saeed Manzil at Dongri and found Turk with several SIM cards, forged documents and customers’ photographs. “The seized cards belong to Airtel, Idea, Uninor, Cheers, Vodafone, Loop and Reliance,” police said. “Turk used to approach dealers and promise them 5,000 customers. Dealers provide discounts or incentives if the number of customers is large,” said DCP Manohar Dalvi.

Then, Turk would buy verified documents of customers from retailers at the rate of Rs 3 per copy, make several photocopies of the forms, change the photographs and names and then submit them to the dealers. The dealers would pay Turk Rs 80 per SIM card. Turk would then refill these SIM cards for Rs 10 each. After activation, he would get huge sums from the dealers.

The police are probing whether the SIM cards were given to Turk in connivance with service providers to show an increase in sales.

Shafqat Usmani, a SIM card retailer and owner of Day Night communication in Mumbai, said that such cards are mostly given to retailers by the companies. “Firms promise incentives and lucrative offers on selling maximum number of SIM cards. In most cases, we have seen that the companies fill the customer application form and simply ask the retailers or the distributors to sell the cards. Sometimes, the distributors send activated cards to the retailers and ask them to collect necessary the documents,” said Usmani.

A retailer said that a delegation of SIM card dealers had met department of telecommunication (DoT) officials and described instances where SIM cards were activated on tendering forged documents. “As per the TRAI rule, it is the service provider’s duty to verify the documents of a SIM card holder within seven days of activation. However, firms ask retailers to do so,” said Amjad Khan, a distributor.

Police sources said Turk was also involved in selling cards for changing mobile portability. “Several people sell activated SIM cards to STD and ISD owners on fake papers and ask them to return the card with Rs 10 or Rs 5 as balance. Later, they use the same mobile balance to change the service provider. They get a commission of Rs 100 for changing one SIM card’s portability. Mobile companies, in most cases, do not verify whether the card is still functioning after changed portability. They are concerned with their increasing number of customers only,” added Khan.

The Times of India, January 13, 2012