Cuttack: The Crime Branch have busted a SIM card racket with the arrest of the mastermind Dusmanta Sahoo and three others from Dhenkanal on Sunday. As many as 19,641 pre-activated SIM cards, 48 mobile phones, Rs 14.32 lakh in cash, documents, and other incriminating materials were seized from the possession of the accused, Crime Branch ADG, Sanjeeb Panda said.
The Cyber Cell of the Crime Branch acted upon a complaint and conducted a probe in this case. Two of the accused used to provide pre-activated mobile SIM cards, they are Sai Prakash Dash and Avinash Nayak. The mastermind, Dusmanta Kumar Sahoo had created a group on social media, named ‘Buyer-Seller’, Panda said.
Sahoo sold these pre-activated cell numbers to cyber fraudsters who used those to carry out financial frauds. One-time passwords generated while carrying out the cyber-frauds were sent by Sahoo to the fraudsters. He used to get Rs 400 per fraudulent transaction.
The accused were nabbed from Talabarkot village in Dhenkanal district. Cyber Team conducted investigation in that area and could come to know that one shop in the name ‘Sky Arts’ dealing with sale and activation of SIMs of different service providers. The proprietor and his co-worker were identified as Sai Prakash Das and Avinash Nayak. They were selling of pre-activated SIMs to one Dusmanta Sahu of Nadiali village.
The SIMs were used to open fake accounts/wallets in different online shopping and gaming apps. The fraudsters also used these numbers to create fake Whats App accounts
Dusmant used share the OTP received in these numbers and share those on the Buyer-Seller group. He received an instant payment for each deal, the Crime Branch informed.
Sai Prakash is a native of Dhenkanal town, Avinash of Meena Bazar in Dhenkanal and Dusmanta belongs to Nadiali village under Dhenkanal Sadar police limits. They were arrested and produced before the local court today, the CB further stated.
