Bhubaneswar: The Cyber Crime Police Station of the Crime Branch, Cuttack, has unearthed a SIM box racket operating from Bhandagaon village under Khunta police limits in Mayurbhanj district.
The mastermind in the case identified as Vishal Khandelwal alias Jonti and six others namely Tapas Kumar Patra, Nigam Patra, Sudhansu Das, Aju Patra, and Ajay Kumar Patra have been arrested.
Reportedly, the Department of Tele Communications, Ministry of Communications, GoI, had lodged a complaint with the Cyber Police on September 12 alleging that a large number of SIMs are being used in SIM boxes (Machine based numbers) to defraud people in various parts of the country.
A huge number of MTNL KYC fraud SMSs are being generated from these sim boxes and mobile numbers and the numbers are operating in Bihar and Odisha.
In order to unearth the fraudulent callers and use of illegal pre-activated SIMs a team consisting of Inspectors Anila Anand, Bibhu Ranjan Sundaray, Priya Ranjan Hota, Sub Inspector Dillip Singh, and Assistant Sub Inspector Asutosh Pradhan of Cyber Crime Police Station was formed.
After primary investigation and analysis, the team proceeded to Khunta, Mayurbhanj to locate the hideout of cyber criminals and conducted a raid at Bhandagaon village.
They initially apprehended Tapas and subsequently, after interrogation, the other associate accused persons were apprehended. A large number of SIMs and other equipment have been recovered from the accused persons.
It has been revealed that mastermind Vishal had procured SIM BOX and engaged Tapas for sending messages by using pre-activated SIMs supplied by Sudhansu and Nigam. They were circulating hundreds of fake messages every day. After a few months, Tapas engaged Aju and Ajay in this crime.
