2 arrested as cyber fraud racket busted in Sriganganagar

The Cyber Police Station, Sriganganagar, has busted a cyber fraud racket and arrested two youths from Anupgarh near the India-Pakistan border.

The accused allegedly duped villagers by misusing their IDs to obtain additional SIM cards, and then passed them on through a Punjab-based conduit to an international cyber fraud network operating out of Cambodia.

The arrests follow nearly a month-long investigation launched on a complaint by Airtel’s nodal officer, Prabhat, on August 26. It was alleged that multiple SIM cards, issued in the names of border villagers, were later found to be active in Cambodia.

Cyber Police Station in-charge DSP Kuldeep Walia said that the accused have been identified as Navdish Mann and Virender Singh. They allegedly used the loudspeaker of a gurudwara in Banda Colony, a border village, to announce that Airtel was distributing free SIM cards. On this occasion, some villagers gathered at the gurudwara, where the suspects lured them by promising free SIM cards.

The DSP explained that the suspects employed a clever trick: they clicked two photographs of each applicant. Using the first, they issued a genuine SIM card to the applicant. Claiming the photo was unclear, they took another picture and used it to fraudulently obtain another SIM card online in the same person’s name. In this way, they misused the IDs of 12 men and women to obtain two SIM cards each.

Investigation revealed that Akashdeep of Sriganganagar, currently absconding, was also involved. Mann, who previously worked as a SIM card issuer, and his associates allegedly supplied the duplicate SIMs to a Punjab-based handler. This handler paid them Rs 150 per card before passing them on to fraud networks in Cambodia.

Both suspects were produced in court on Wednesday and remanded to police custody. Efforts are on tot race the Punjab conduit who supplied the cards abroad.