The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has reportedly traced around 52,000 SIM cards which were issued with similar photos and several of them with the same address proofs.
The DoT personnel, who traced the fraud by utilising Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools, asked the police of various States to trace the fake SIM cards and book the culprits.
“Acting on the complaints, we have registered three cases. We are making efforts to identify the accused and trace the SIM cards which are not active,” said NTR district Police Commissioner Kanthi Rana Tata.
During the investigation, the police identified that a majority of the demo cards of various service providers were misused. The police picked up a few franchisees of some private telecom operators in the State.
“The SIM cards racket has been operating in Andhra Pradesh since 2020. Thousands of cards have been issued on the basis of one photograph in the last four years. However, the address proofs submitted for these cards are different,” said an investigation officer.
“We have found that many SIM cards inactive. We are not clear to whom the cards have been given and who are in possession of these unused cards now. We can retrieve the data of SIM cards up to a certain time frame,” a senior police officer said.
Investigation officers suspect that the customers used the SIM cards for a few days and threw them later. “Some cards are still in use and we can trace the users. We are probing whether any criminal conspiracy is involved and the cards have landed in the hands of terrorist groups, naxalites or other anti-social elements,” a police officer said.
