Thursday, 22 February 2024 | PNS | DEHRADUN
The cyber crime police station of Uttarakhand Special Task Force (STF) arrested a man who had allegedly bought at least 45,000 fake M2M SIM cards to conduct cyber crimes across the country. The STF recovered 3,000 SIM cards from the accused which is one of the biggest recoveries of fake SIM cards in the country. Such SIMs can also pose a threat to national security which is also being investigated, the senior superintendent of police of STF Ayush Agrawal said. He said in a Press conference on Wednesday that the accused has been identified as Mudassir Mirza (29), a resident of Delhi.
Mirza, along with his other associates, created a fake company and obtained thousands of M2M SIM cards in its name. They presented themselves as employees of “Indira Securities Company” on their fake website to steal the public’s money. They started luring people to invest in stock trading through WhatsApp calls and messages and cheated them by making them download various apps through links. They used fake M2M SIM cards to commit these frauds and often removed it from devices after scamming the target. “The Uttarakhand STF came to know about the gang when a man registered a case in the Dehradun cyber crime unit a few days ago in which he was duped of Rs 80 lakh in the similar manner. The police registered a case under relevant acts.
Considering the seriousness of the case, a team was formed under the supervision of the deputy superintendent of police of STF’s cyber crime unit Ankush Mishra,” SSP said. After a thorough investigation, the accused was finally arrested from Delhi late on Tuesday. He along with his gang has possibly carried out scams worth crores. The STF is investigating all angles.
Informing about M2M SIMs, the DSP said that M2M SIM means Machine to Machine Subscriber Identity Module that enables devices to exchange information without any human intervention. It is also used in debit/ credit card swiping machines and Point of Sales (POS) devices. These are also used in warehouse management, robotics, traffic control, logistics services, fleet management, and remote control besides being used for emerging technologies such as Internet of Things (IoT) devices. He said that scammers are using new ways and technology to dupe people and one can avoid them by staying cautious and ensuring complete verification of any new agency or person before making any online transaction.
