A police team investigating a cyber fraud case arrested a man reportedly involved in supplying mobile phone SIM cards to online fraudsters in the country. As many as 40,000 SIM cards of different mobile operators and 180 mobile phones were recovered from him.
Cyber Police Inspector I.C. Chitharanjan and team arrested Abdul Roshan, 46, hailing from Haranhalli in Karnataka, from a rented house at Madikeri. District Police Chief S. Sasidharan said Roshan was the kingpin of a cyber fraud group that cheated a man from Vengara of ₹1.08 crore.
Mr. Sasidharan said the group had cheated the man through a fake online share market. He was reportedly made to deposit cash in different bank accounts after being offered huge profits.
The police team zeroed in on Roshan using cyber technology and arrested him with the help of the Karnataka Police. He was found to have been collecting and using SIM cards in the names of different people without their knowledge. The SIM card used to cheat the Vengara man was in the name of a woman who was found to be unaware of such a SIM card in her name. The police said Roshan procured the SIM cards with the help of his friends in mobile shops by paying ₹50 a card.
He reportedly collected the biometric fingerprints of customers reaching mobile retail shops without their knowledge. The customers would be made to submit their fingerprints two or three times, and different SIM cards would be made in their names. Roshan allegedly distributed the SIM cards to fraudsters after activating them.
