Hyderabad: The Local Telecom Enforcement Resource and Monitoring (TERM) cell of the telecommunications department has not taken any action against mobile service providers who have failed to block phone numbers being used by fraudsters based in Jharkhand and other parts of North India to conduct vishing scams. In response to a letter written by the Cybercrime police and the TS home department, the telecommunications department clarified that a fine of Rs 50,000 would be imposed on the operators for each connection that they failed to block as requested by law enforcement agencies.
The Cybercrime police of the Central Crime Station has asked for at least 200 connections to be blocked by operators including Airtel, Idea, Vodafone and Uninor, as those numbers are being used by fraudsters to steal one-time passwords (OTP’s) from gullible individuals. Mr K.C.S. Raghuveer, assistant commissioner (Cybercrime) of the Hyderabad CCS, said, “OTP stealing is so rampant that we receive four to five complaints every day. It is estimated that around Rs 500 crore has been siphoned off from across the country by these gangs. SIM cards are sold in bulk, without asking for identity proof, in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, and Jharkhand. The fraudsters buy them and use them to conduct ATM and debit card frauds. We have taken up this issue with Airtel, Idea and other companies several times, but they have not blocked those numbers.”
Hyderabad police commissioner M. Mahendar Reddy had written to the TS home department, asking for the issue to be addressed. The Cyber-crime police wrote to the TERM but did not receive a positive response from them. “We have written to the DOT, and we have received a reply which clearly says that the local TERM has to take action. We are writing a letter to the TERM again, seeking action. There are around 24 Airtel connections, 18 Idea connection, 42 Vodafone connections, and four Uninor connections, almost all of which are from Jharkhand, which need to be blocked. We have provided the companies with the phone numbers,” said Mr Raghuveer.
