Man held for supplying SIM cards to cyber fraudsters

The Malad Cyber cell arrested man from Delhi

The Malad Cyber cell on Wednesday arrested a man from Delhi for allegedly supplying SIM cards to cyber fraudsters for Rs 5000.

The incident came to light when a woman approached Malad police stating that a man who posed as an HDFC Life agent debited Rs 3.67 lakhs from her account promising her tripled benefit of Rs 11 lakh for one of her policies.

According to police, the complainant had received a call and also an email from what appeared to be the official email ID of HDFC life in the month of June last year. The executive had told the complainant that she would get the benefits of a policy that had matured of Rs 11 lakhs. He asked her to deposit Rs 3.67 lakhs as a service charge. Upon realizing that she had been duped, the woman registered a complaint with the police.

The police traced the mobile number from where she received calls and found it to be owned by Vijay Vihar resident in New Delhi. On questioning the owner about the SIM card, he informed the police that he had given his documents to a friend who wanted a SIM card.

Following this, the police traced the man who had bought the SIM card and arrested him from Delhi.

The accused, identified as Saurabh Khemchand (30), told the police that he was just an agent and used to get the SIM cards for Cyber fraudsters who bought a single SIM card for Rs 5000 from him.

On further investigating the matter, it was found that most committing fraud in this way are active in Rohini and other areas in Delhi where big companies doing outsourcing work are located.

"The accused work in these companies for a few months and then steal data from there to cheat people," said an officer from Malad police station.

The accused don't use the same sim cards to cheat people.

"We have identified the person who had committed the fraud with the woman whom the arrested accused had sold the sim to for Rs 5000, but he has fled for now. API Vivek Tambe and other staff including constable Ashok Konde and Tausif Sheik have arrested the accused from Dehli and are searching for another gang member. Now, we are also finding out how many SIM cards were procured and sold to Cyber fraudsters by the accused," said senior inspector D Ligade from Malad police station.