Hyderabad: Cyber Police Crack Ghost SIM Racket
During May, arrests were made across a wide range of offences. Investment fraud accounted for 33 arrests, matrimonial fraud 12 and trading fraud seven. Cases related to social media scams, OTP fraud, APK fraud, job fraud, loan fraud, dating fraud, customer care fraud and business fraud were also detected
HYDERABAD: Hyderabad’s cybercrime police station registered 54 FIRs in May and arrested 74 people involved in cybercrime cases across India. Officials said they cracked down on major organised networks, including a nationwide ‘ghost SIM’ racket that enabled fraudsters to carry out scams anonymously.
According to the monthly review released by the cybercrime police, authorities conducted “Operation Octopus 3.0”, which exposed a pan-India network engaged in fraudulent KYC collection, unauthorised SIM activations and illegal e-SIM conversions used in sextortion, digital arrest scams and financial frauds.
As part of the operation, cybercrime police arrested 66 accused from 13 states in connection with 48 cases. Those arrested included 44 ghost SIM card holders, 20 point-of-sale agents and two suppliers.
During May, arrests were made across a wide range of offences. Investment fraud accounted for 33 arrests, matrimonial fraud 12 and trading fraud seven. Cases related to social media scams, OTP fraud, APK fraud, job fraud, loan fraud, dating fraud, customer care fraud and business fraud were also detected.
The highest number of accused came from Telangana (19) and Andhra Pradesh (16), followed by Uttar Pradesh (7), Karnataka (6), Tamil Nadu and Gujarat (5 each), Maharashtra (4), West Bengal and Delhi (3 each), Madhya Pradesh (2) and Odisha (1).
Police seized 43 mobile phones, 32 SIM cards, 19 laptops, 10 bank passbooks and one cheque book during investigations.