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3 held for selling SIM cards on forged papers
The Task Force personnel identified them as P Ravi Kumar, a sales executive of Vodafone network, S Suresh Kumar, a distributor of Idea mobile network, and P Ganeshu, a promoter in Vodafone network.
Visakhapatnam: The City Task Force Police on Thursday busted a SIM card racket by arresting three persons of private mobile service networks for selling pre-activated prepaid SIM cards to unknown persons for higher prices by forging the documents of the genuine customers.
The police seized over 1,357 pre-activated SIM cards, 845 forged documents and 14 mobile phones from the three accused. The arrested were remanded in judicial custody and an FIR was registered under Sections 420 (Cheating) and 468 (Forgery) of the IPC.
The Task Force personnel identified them as P Ravi Kumar, a sales executive of Vodafone network, S Suresh Kumar, a distributor of Idea mobile network, and P Ganeshu, a promoter in Vodafone network.
Acting on a tip off, the Task Force personnel led by Assistant Commissioner of Police I Chittibabu, Inspector R Mallikarjuna Rao and Sub-Inspector A Hari Babu conducted surprise raids on the retail outlets of telecom service providers at Daba Gardens, Muralinagar and Arilova areas and seized a total of 1,357 pre-activated SIM cards, forged documents and mobile phones from their possession.
DCP (Zone-I) Dr CM Thrivikrama Varma said that the accused had used single set of documents of a genuine customer by forging the documents to obtain multiple SIM cards from the service providers and activating them. They would later sell these SIM cards for a higher price to the people who did not have identity cards and residence proofs.
The trio has flouted the norms set by the department of telecommunications. Expressing the possible dangers to the national security if the SIM cards falling into wrong hands, the DCP said that Commissioner of Police Amit Garg will be holding a meeting soon with the cellular networks to ascertain the extent of damage and how to curb this menace in a couple of days.
The CTF personnel said that the trio has sold over 5,000 SIM cards to unknown persons in the past two years and they also sold some SIM cards in Narsipatnam and a few rural areas, which shares border with the Maoists’ hot beds in Vizag.
The police did not rule out collusion of some employees from the mobile network companies and it is learnt that wrong methods are at times adopted to fulfil the steep monthly targets.
