Bhubaneswar: The special task force (STF) of Odisha Police arrested Samim Islam, son of Sadikul Islam and a resident of Murshidabad district in West Bengal on Monday last in connection with an inter-state fake SIM card/mule bank accounts racket.
Samim was produced before the Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate, Lalbag, Murshidabad, and brought to Bhubaneswar on a three-day transit remand. Now, he will be produced before the court of SDJM, Bhubaneswar.
The accused was a key member of the racket having links mainly in West Bengal and Bihar. Earlier, a case was registered at the STF police station. The STF had also arrested three other scammers – Sk. Hapizul, a resident of Balasore ; Sk. Jahangir, a resident of Balasore; and Sk. Jamiruddin a resident of West Medinapur in West Bengal in connection with the racket.
They were running mule bank accounts and sold these bank accounts along with the connected mobile numbers to various cyber, cyber-financial, and sextortion scammers based in Kolkata and other parts of India. This racket operates mainly in the tri-junction area of Odisha, Jharkhand, and West Bengal, especially in the districts of Balasore, Mayurbhanj, East Midnapore, West Midnapore, East Sighbhum, West Singhbhum and Saraikela. This racket was headed by Sk. Jamiruddin who employed around 10-15 people at a salary of 15,000 per month to open bank accounts.
These members visit various interior areas of these districts targeting mainly poor villagers/ tribal and persuading/luring them to open bank accounts. Villagers were generally offered Rs 2,000 for giving their documents and opening bank accounts. However, the mobile numbers linked with bank accounts were provided by gang members.
In turn, the gang sold these bank accounts along with the connected mobile numbers to various cyber, cyber-financial, and sextortion scammers based in Kolkata and other parts of India. They also used social media platforms like secret WhatsApp groups, Facebook pages, and Telegram channels to sell the mule bank accounts. They sold each mule bank account for anything between Rs 15,000 and Rs 20,000. So far they have sold around 5000 mule bank accounts at different platforms.
