The Northeast Cyber Crime Police on Monday arrested a 31-year-old cab driver, who had allegedly stolen the SIM card from the mobile phone of a 70-year-old woman on May 8.
The accused, identified as Prakash B.G., from Dudda, who worked for DriveU , a private driver service provider, was arrested after the police realised that the accused had replaced the SIM card to operate the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) and other payment apps.
Investigation revealed that the accused was given the task to pick up the victim from her house and drop her at her relative’s place.
The victim’s son, a techie, had booked the driver through the app.
On the way, the accused allegedly stopped the car for refreshments and diverted the attention of the victim to steal the SIM card.
Using the stolen SIM card, the accused allegedly operated the mobile payment app and transferred ₹3.5 lakh to his account and also purchased a mobile phone and a scooter using the money.
Meanwhile, a few days later, the victim realised that her SIM card was blocked and got an alternative SIM card to get the transaction messages.
Based on the complaint, Northeast Cyber Crime Inspector Santosh Ram analysed the sequence of events, before arresting Prakash.
The police have recovered several other duplicate SIM cards from the accused and are investigating to ascertain his criminal background.
The police have advised people not to lose their phone or in the case of theft, alert the bank, and the service provider to block the SIM card and the bank accounts as it can be accessed through the SIM card through UPI.
The UPI service providers should also make it mandatory for multiple authentication before initiating payment process, especially in case of the SIM card being used on a different phone, a police officer said.
The police said there are many cases in the recent past wherein people have withdrawn money from the account of their parents, after stealing the SIM card for a few minutes.
They replace the SIM card, download the app to withdraw money, and later return the SIM card to the original phone.
