18-05-2025
Another ghost SIM card racket exposed; POS agent held in Sitapur
While backtracking sources of pre-activated SIM cards, the state police have exposed another nexus of POS (point of sales) agents in Sitapur supplying SIM cards to criminals and terror operatives.
On Thursday night, UP Special Task Force exposed a major nexus comprising telecom company employees and distributors involved in supplying over 10,000 SIM cards activated through unauthorised means to cyber criminals in Chitrakoot. Six people, including two territory sales executives of a prominent telecom firm, were arrested.
In the Sitapur case, UP Anti-Terror Squad (ATS) on Friday carried out extensive searches to arrest POS agent Sant Ram, who allegedly sold 14 SIM cards that were issued on forged Aadhaar cards to terror operatives in 2022. The Sitapur police confirmed that the accused managed to escape but was later caught from Dhairacha Bazaar near the highway on Saturday morning.
On Thursday, UP ATS inspector Arvind Kumar Pandey had lodged an FIR against Sant Ram, who ran a SIM card shop in Dhairacha Bazar under old Indian Penal Code (IPC) sections 420 for cheating, 467 for forgery of valuable securities, 468 for forgery of document and 471 for using as genuine a forged document to issue SIM cards.
According to the FIR, Sant Ram used the photograph of his ex-wife Shalu to prepare forged Aadhaar cards and issued SIM cards to criminal elements at higher prices after activating them. A senior ATS official said initial investigation revealed that Sant Ram sold 14 SIM cards to criminal and terror elements.
The official confirmed that the SIM cards supplied to criminal and terror elements in Chitrakoot and Sitapur were from the same telecom company. 'We will issue notice to the telecom company and probe the role of its employees in promoting such illegal sale of SIM cards to achieve their targets and smaller monetary benefits,' he added.
The STF officials said CBI, which has launched a nationwide crackdown to curb cybercrimes, has also carried out simultaneous raids in several districts of UP. Hathras ASP CN Sinha had confirmed that the CBI carried out raids at multiple places in Hathras to arrest preactivated SIM cards' suppliers on Friday.
