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Mobile shop owner held from Delhi, used to supply fake SIM cards to cyber fraud gang
The suspect used to sell a fraudulently issued SIM card for ₹1000 to ₹1500 while a normal card costs hardly ₹50-100
Gurugram: A Delhi-based shopkeeper who runs a mobile store was arrested for allegedly supplying fake SIM cards to a cyber fraud gang, which then used the cards to cheat people on the pretext of providing easy loans, police said on Thursday.
Investigators said that the 28-year-old suspect Rajnish Kumar, arrested on Monday, had his SIM card and mobile phone sales and repair shop at Rampura in Delhi.
They said that he had set up the shop about a year ago and was continually providing fake SIM cards to such suspects since then.
Investigators said Kumar confessed that he had supplied at least 12 such SIM cards recently, but he may have supplied over 100 such cards in the last year to the gang. They said that the actual count of people cheated by the gang may be above 500.
Assistant commissioner of police (cybercrime), Priyanshu Dewan, said that the suspect used to sell a fraudulently issued SIM card for ₹1000 to ₹1500 while a normal card costs hardly ₹50-100.
“The members of the gang cheated a Gurugram resident of ₹50000 on the pretext of providing him with a personal loan instantly in December last year. The suspects had used two cards supplied by Kumar to contact him,” Dewan said.
According to the police, the suspect, hailing from Bihar’s Gopalganj, used documents submitted by common people for getting fraudulent SIM cards by putting a random address and the contact number of his mobile repair technician in the cellular firm’s database to receive activation OTP.
Investigators said that the victim had submitted a complaint on December 25 following which an FIR was registered against unidentified suspects under Section 420 (cheating) of the Indian Penal Code at the cybercrime police station (West). They said the identity of the suspected members of the gang and the one who had been procuring cards from Kumar had been ascertained and they would also be arrested soon.
